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THE AMAZON, 



AND 



THE ATLANTIC SLOPES 



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SOUTH AMERICA. 



A SERIES OF LETTERS PUBLISHED IN THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER AND UNION 
NEWSPAPERS, UNDER THE SIGNATURE OP " INCA," 

By M. F. MAURY, LL.D., Lieutenant U. S. Navy. 



REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR. 

" 



\ 



J«f WASV 

WASHINGTON: 
PUBLISHED BY FRANCK TAYLOR. 

1853. 



f 



IURK.WOOD & McQILL, PRINTERS. 






\> 



These Letters were originally published by the National Intelligencer 
and the Union, of this City. They treat of one of the most important 
commercial questions of the age : they are attracting much attention 
in the public mind : they are eagerly sought after in all parts of the 
country ; and though they have been extensively read, the demand for 
them in a more permanent shape than that of a newspaper is such that 
the Publisher has obtained leave of their Author to reissue them in 
their present form. 

Washington City, January, 1853. 








THE AMAZON, AND ATLANTIC SLOPES. 



CHAPTER I. 



True policy — The Amazon country, its climate and productions ; healthy — Why 
the Amazon is a well-watered country, and why it is different from other 
inter-tropical countries. 

The "policy of commerce," and not a the policy of conquest," 
is the policy of the United States. 

The spirit of the age, animated by private enterprise, is every 
day seeking new fields for its peaceful triumphs, and commerce 
can accomplish throughout the world no achievements like those 
which will note its coming, and signalize its marches up and 
down the Amazon, and the other great rivers of that greatest of 
water-sheds, the Atlantic slopes of South America. 

Men may talk about Cuba and Japan ; but of all the diplo- 
matic questions of the day, the free navigation of those majestic 
water-courses, and their tributaries, is to this country the most 
interesting and important. It surpasses them all. It is para- 
mount. 

The country that is drained by the Amazon, if reclaimed from 
the savage, the wild beast, and the reptile, and reduced to culti- 
vation now, would be capable of supporting with its produce the 
population of the whole world. 

It is a rice country. The common yield of rice is forty for 
one. It is reaped five months after planting, and may be planted 
at any time of the year. Thus the farmer may plant one bushel 
of rice to-day — in five months hence he will gather forty from it. 
Planting these forty, he may, in another five months, gather six- 
teen hundred bushels. In ten months the earth yields an 
increase there of a thousand-fold and more. 

Corn, too, may be planted at any time, and in three months is 
fit for gathering. Thus the husbandman there may gather four 
crops of corn a year. Its seasons are an everlasting summer, 
with a perpetual round of harvests. 

It is the policy of commerce — and commerce is the policy of 
these United States — to open that river to steam, and its valley 



6 

to settlement and cultivation ; its earth, its air, and its waters to 
the business and wants of trade and traffic. 

There, upon that Atlantic slope of South America, in the val- 
ley of the La Plata, and in the valley of the Amazon, Nature in 
all her ways has been most bountiful. 

There the vegetable kingdom displays its forces in all their 
most perfect grandeur, and in all their might; and there, too, 
the mineral kingdom is most dazzling with its wealth. 

In that region of country wagon-roads are few, turnpikes 
unknown, and the first railway has yet to be built ; and though 
the La Plata drains a country nearly as large and many times 
more fertile than is our own Mississippi valley, and though that of 
the Amazon is twice as great, and its tributaries many times longer, 
more navigable, and numerous, yet the steamboat upon those 
waters is a problem almost untried. In the valley of the Amazon 
the plough is unknown: and the American rifle and axe, the 
great implements of settlement and civilization, are curiosities. 

For more than three hundred years the white man has been 
established in that Amazonian basin, and for more than three 
hundred years it has remained a howling wilderness. Owing to 
the mismanagement of its rulers, the European has made no 
impression — none — no, not the least — upon its forests. How 
long shall this continue to be so ? 

Has diplomacy no arts, commerce no charms, by which this 
policy may be broken up ; by which its rivers may be opened to 
navigation, its forests to settlement, its pampas to cultivation ? 

What commerce has done for South America is as nothing in 
comparison with what it will do. It has fringed only the sea-coast 
of that continent with settlement and cultivation. The great 
interior has never been touched. The heart of the country is a 
commercial blank; nor is it to be reached except through the 
powers of steam, and the free use of its majestic water-courses. 

It is of this country — of the importance of settling it up, of 
sending there the emigrant, the steamboat, the axe, and the 
plough, with the messengers and agencies of commerce — that I 
wish to speak. 

Let us, therefore, first see where it is, how far off it is, and 
what is its actual condition, and then we will be enabled the 
better to judge as to the true course of policy which it would be 
best for the commercial nations of the earth to take with regard 
to it. 

The semi-continent of South America is very nearly in shape 
that of a right-angled triangle. Its hypotenuse rests on the 
Pacific: one of its legs extends from Cape Horn to Cape St. 
KopjUe. Here the right angle is formed with the other leg, which 



extends from Cape St. Roque, in latitude 5 deg. south, to Cabo 
La Vela, of the Caribbean sea, in latitude 12 deg. north. 

The longer leg is that between Capes Horn and St. Roque ; it 
is 3,500 geographical miles in length. The other leg has only 
2,500; but the hypotenuse, which stands on the Andes and rests 
on the Pacific, is more than 4,000 miles long. 

This configuration exercises a powerful influence upon the 
climates of South America, especially as it regards its hyetc- 
graphy. The great rivers of that country, the mighty Amazon 
and the majestic La Plata, are resultants of this configuration. 
In consequence of having the sea-front which rests upon the 
short leg in the northern hemisphere, and looking to the north- 
east ; — and in consequence of having the sea-front which rests 
upon the long leg in the southern hemisphere, to look southeast, 
the northeast and the southeast trade winds, as they come across 
the Atlantic filled with moisture, go full charged into the interior, 
dropping it in showers as they go until they reach the snow- 
capped summits of the Andes, where the last drop, which that very 
low temperature can wring from them, is' deposited to melt and 
feed the sources of the Amazon and the La Plata with their 
tributaries. 

The northeast trade winds commence to blow about the Tropic 
of Cancer, and coming from the quarter they do, they blow 
obliquely across the Atlantic. They evaporate from the sea as 
they go ; and, impinging at right angles upon the South American 
shore-line that extends from Cape St. Roque to Cabo La Vela, 
they carry into the interior the vapor that forms the clouds that 
give the rain which supplies with water the Magdalena, the 
Orinoco, and the northern tributaries of the Amazon. 

The volume of water discharged by these rivers into the sea is 
expressive of the quantity which those northeast trade winds take 
up from the sea, carry in the clouds, and precipitate upon the 
water-shed that is drained by these streams. They are but pipes 
and gutters which Nature has placed under the eaves of the great 
water-shed that has the Andes for a ridge-pole, the Caribbean 
sea and North Atlantic for a cistern. 

The trade-wind region of the North Atlantic affords the water- 
surface where the evaporation is carried on that supplies with 
rains, dews, and moisture, New Granada, Venezuela, the three 
Gruianas, and the Atlantic slopes of the Ecuador. 

On the other hand, the southeast trade winds commence to 
blow about the parallel of 30 deg. or 35 deg. south. They, too, 
come obliquely across the Atlantic, and strike perpendicularly 
upon the South American coast-line which extends from Cape 
St. Roque towards Cape Horn. They pass into the interior with 
their whole load of moisture, every drop of which is wrung from 



them before they cross the Andes. The quantity of moisture 
which is taken up from the sea and rained down upon this won- 
derfully fruitful country may be seen in what the La Plata and 
the Amazon discharge back into the ocean. 

Now, there is no tropical country in the world which has to 
windward, and so exactly to windward of it, such an extent of 
ocean in the trade-wind region. Consequently there is no inter- 
tropical country in the world that is so finely watered as is this 
great Amazon country of South America. 

Along the Atlantic coast of the United States, along the coast 
of China and the east coast of New Holland, the land trends 
along with the direction of the trade winds of those regions. 
These winds, with their moisture, travel along parallel with the 
land. They do not blow perpendicularly upon it, nor push their 
vapors right across it into the interior, as they do in South 
America. The consequence is, none of those inter-tropical 
countries can boast of streams and water-courses like those of 
South America. 

The shore line of eastern Africa is arranged like that of the 
South American water-shed ; but it has not sea enough to windward 
to supply the vapor to feed springs enough to make large rivers. 

The southeast trade winds, when the monsoons of the Indian 
ocean will permit them to blow, strike perpendicularly upon the 
east coast of South Africa, as they do upon that of South 
America. In the American case, they blow perpetually — in the 
African case, for not half the year. They, therefore, cannot give 
Africa half as much rain as South America receives. 

At Cape Guardafui the right angle of the African coast line is 
formed, as it is at Cape St. Roque for America ; but the winds 
which cross this line between Cape St. Roque and the isthmus 
have traversed the Atlantic ocean and Caribbean sea — hence 
they reach the land dripping with moisture ; whereas, in Africa, 
the northeast trades, which cross the coast line from Cape 
Guardafui to the isthmus of Suez, have sucked up vapors from 
the Red sea only; — therefore the quantity of moisture which these 
winds carry into the interior of Africa is not by any means so 
great as that which those of the Atlantic carry over into South 
America. The difference is as great as is the difference of the 
evaporating surface exposed to the northeast trade winds by the 
Atlantic, on the one hand, and by the Red sea on the other. 

The two systems of trade winds — the northeast and the south- 
east — meet in the interior of South America, somewhere between 
the equator and the isthmus of Darien. This place of meeting 
is a place of calms, and where it is, there it is rainy. 

This circumstance, and other meteorological agents, divide the 
seasons in the northern portions of South America, especially the 



9 

valley of the Orinoco, into the rainy and the dry — six months of con- 
stant rain, six months of blighting drought, is the condition here. 

Not so in the valley of the Amazon. There the weather is 
agreeable all the year round ; and though more rain falls there 
in some months than in others, as it does here with us, still there 
as here, it may rain, and does rain, any day in the year. 

Now, I think that any one who has followed me with a map 
will perceive why this inter-tropical region of South America, or 
that part of its water-shed which from Panama to the parallel of 
30° or 35° south slopes towards the Atlantic, has, and ought to 
have, the most remarkable climate in the world. We have seen 
that Eastern Africa, and Eastern Africa alone, resembles it in 
configuration of shore line ; but the evaporating surface and the 
supplies of vapor are wanting, and therefore South Africa cannot 
be nearly so well supplied with rains, and consequently with- 
rivers, as is South America. 

In all the other inter-tropical regions of the world — in India, 
in Western Africa, New Holland, and Polynesia — the year is 
divided into the rainy season and the dry ; during the latter of 
which' little or no water falls, springs go dry, and cattle perish, 
and dead bodies pollute the air. Then, too, stalks forth in those 
countries the "pestilence that walketh in darkness." 

In the valley of the Amazon no such condition exists. There 
the fall of water, though copious — the river Amazon is the rain- 
guage — is not compressed within a few months, nor accompanied 
by the terrible hurricanes and tornadoes which rage at the change 
of seasons in India. Here, in America, gentle and fruitful 
showers fall daily, and tornadoes are rare. 

Because the Amazon is in a tropical country, the public is dis- 
posed to judge of its climates by comparing them with the 
climates of other tropical countries — as India, for example. But 
for the reasons stated, and because there are no monsoons or 
other conditions to cause the valley of the Amazon to be 
parched with drought at one season, and drenched with rains at 
another — as India is on one hand, and the Orinoco country on 
the other — there is no more resemblance between the climates of 
India and of the Amazon than there is between the climates of 
Rome and Boston ; and any one who would infer similarity of 
climate from the fact that Boston and Rome are in the same lati- 
tude would not be more out than he who infers similarity of 
climate between India and Amazonia because they both are tropi- 
cal countries. 

Now, what ought to be the condition of an inter-tropical 
country whose plains are watered with frequent showers, unac- 
companied by a single drought during ages of perpetual summer ? 
Why, fertility and salubrity ; for in such a climate anything and 



10 

everything will grow. The rapid production and constant decay 
of vegetable matter that have been going on there for thousands 
and thousands of years must have made the soil rich with vege- 
table mould. 

The fact that vegetation there is in perpetual activity — that 
there, there is no period of vegetable repose — that as fast as one 
leaf falls and begins to decay, other leaves, just putting forth, 
absorb its gases — these conditions make the valley of the Ama- 
zon one of the most salubrious and delightful of climates. 

Having shown that the climate of the La Plata and Amazon 
country is a climate without droughts, and that it is a moist and 
warm climate, I have established enough to satisfy any one that 
the soil there, whatever be the substratum, must have upon it a 
rich vegetable mould, which the decay of the most rank vegeta- 
tion during ages must have formed. 



"-■ 



11 



CHAPTER II. 

The La Plata the Mississippi of the southern hemisphere — River basins com- 
pared — Commerce of the La Plata, its value — Productions — A vegetable cow, 
and a natural distillery — The Diamond Mountains — Canal between the waters 
of the La Plata and the Amazon. 

I proceed now to show the present condition with the future 
resources and commercial capabilities of the great South Amer- 
ican water-sheds. I will confine my attention to the rivers 
Amazon and La Plata, to their tributaries, and the valleys 
drained by them. But first let us give our attention to the La 
Plata, and compare the extent of country drained by it with the 
extent drained by rivers in the northern hemisphere. 

The valley of the Amazon lies in both hemispheres ; it is the 
largest river-basin in the world, but it belongs exclusively 
neither to the North nor to the South. Excluding the Amazon, 
therefore, from the comparison ; the Mississippi, then, it will be 
perceived, drains the largest river-basin in the northern, and the 
La Plata the largest in the southern hemisphere. Both these 
streams run from north to south, each one embracing a great 
variety of productions, and traversing many diversities of 
climate ; but one runs towards the equator, the other from it. 

The area of the principal river-basins which are drained into 
seas that are accessible to ocean commerce, may be thus stated : 
In America. — The Amazon, area 2,048,480* square miles. 

North America. — The Mississippi, area 982,000 square mileSo 
South America. — The La Plata, area 886,000 square miles. 
Europe. — The Danube, area, 234,000 square miles. 
Africa.-;— The Nile, area 520,000 square miles. 
Asia (China). — The Yang-tse-Keang, area 547,000 sq. miles. 
India. — The Ganges, area 432,000 square miles. 

It will thus be observed that the valley of the La Plata in area 
is the third in the world ; that it is twice as large as the valley 
of the Ganges, and more than three times as large as the largest 
river-basin in Europe. 

The basin of the La Plata embraces all the latitudes, and more 
too, that are to be found in the valleys of the Indus, the Ganges, 
and the Irawaddy — 'the great river-basins of India. It conse- 
quently has all the agricultural capacities, and more, that are to 
be found in the climates of India. These great resources of the 
La Plata for the most part lie dormant. They are hidden in the 

* Including tlio Orinoco. 



12 

bosom of the earth, or concealed in the recesses of the moun- 
tains. The waters of the La Plata flow through climates that 
are favorable to the growth of sugar, of tea and coffee, of rice, 
hemp, and tobacco, of cotton and corn, of drugs, woods, dyes, and 
spices, and of almost all the agricultural staples of the earth. 

The Bio de la Plata lies wholly within the southern hemi- 
sphere, and it is the greatest river that does so lie ; consequently 
it has opposite seasons with those of the northern. When the 
husbandman is sowing in the North, then he who tills the earth 
in this beautiful river-basin will be gathering his crop ; and con- 
sequently the planter, and the farmer, and the merchant of the 
La Plata will have control of the northern markets for six 
months of every year, without a competitor. 

The Eio de la Plata, properly speaking, is that arm of the 
sea which lies between the parallels of 33° and 36° of south lati- 
tude. Its breadth is a hundred miles or more, according to the 
place of measurement, and it is formed by the junction of the 
Parana and the Uruguay. I treat of all the country drained by 
these rivers and their tributaries as the valley of the La Plata. 

The Uruguay is a beautiful stream. It takes its rise in the 
Brazilian province of Santa Catarina, on the western slopes of 
the " Serra do Mar," or the sea range of mountains. Its course 
is first westwardly and then southwardly ; it is about seven hun- 
dred miles long ; drains a rich, fertile, and tolerably well-settled 
country. For part of the way it is the boundary between Brazil, 
with the Banda Oriental on one side, and the Argentine Confede- 
ration on the other. 

The Parana is a majestic river. It is formed by the junction 
of the two Brazilian streams, the Rio Grande and the Parana- 
hiba. The former takes its rise near the parallel of 20° south, 
not far from the sea-shore, and in the wealthy province of Minas 
Geraes. The valley in which the head-waters of this- river are 
gathered into the main stream is most magnificent. It is about 
two hundred miles broad in the widest part, by four hundred 
miles long. The course of the Rio Grande through it is due 
west ; it maintains this course for about five hundred miles, 
until it meets the Paranahiba coming from the northward, where 
its sources interlapped, and almost mingled with those of the 
Amazon. 

The population of the two interior provinces of Minas Geraes 
and Goiaz, in which these two tributaries of the Parana take their 
rise, and in which they lie, is for the former one million, for the 
latter one hundred and fifty thousand. 

The Japanese-like policy which has been observed with regard 
to scientific explorations of the La Plata and its tributaries has 
kept the world in the dark as to many parts of that valley. 



13 

Dr. Francia established in Paraguay, many years ago, a govern- 
ment founded upon the Japanese system. Rosas attempted an 
imitation of this policy so long as he was in power ; and Brazil 
has always practised it. So that geographers really know very 
little as to the Brazilian tributaries of the La Plata, their naviga- 
bility, and the commercial resources of the countries which they 
drain. 

According to the map "Do Imperio do Brazil," published in 
1846, under the auspices of the Geographical Society, at Rio de 
Janeiro, and which is now before me, the Parana, for the first 
five hundred miles below the junction of the Rio Grande and the 
Paranahiba, runs through uninhabited parts of the provinces of 
Goiaz, Matto Grosso, and Sao Paulo. Passing these uninhab- 
ited parts, it then runs through and among the Spanish republics 
of that region for about twelve hundred miles to its entrance into 
the Plata. Along this part of its route the country is pretty well 
settled, and, according to Montgomery Martin,* whose authority 
is more recent than that of the map of the Geographical Society 
of Brazil, must be in a high state of cultivation. Writing last 
year upon this river, he says : 

"During the sis or eight months that the Parana, or Plate river, was recently 
opened to European commerce, upwards of sixteen millions dollars' worth of 
goods were exchanged for produce, and this without any previously organized 
mercantile establishments or system. Two convoys of merchant ships, one of 
110, and the other of 76 vessels, came down the river with full cargoes. It is 
true that this extent of trade was partly attributable to the accumulation of 
property owing to the previous interdiction of commerce by General Rosas, whose 
exclusive policy is an imitation of that of Dr. Francia, as he has himself boasted. 
He is therefore entirely hostile to mercantile, or indeed to any intercourse, 
especially with Europeans. Were Rosas to succeed, he would form a State such 
as Japan has been for the last two centuries." 

The commerce of this river, I know, is valuable ; but whether 
it be so very valuable at this time as the above extract from Mar- 
tin would make it, I doubt. 

But, suppose it were one million instead of sixteen that was 
brought down through this unexpected free navigation for six or 
eight months, what would it not be under regular steam and free 
navigation at the end of six or eight years, when the steamboat 
and commerce shall have stimulated the productions of the country 
up to the capacity of its industrial capital ? 

Leaving the Parana, and traveling still further west, we come 
next to the Paraguay, the most magnificent tributary in this 
water-shed. Following it in its windings, it is navigable to the 
distance of about two thousand miles from the sea. It is the 
Missouri of the La Plata valley. 

A*friend|who has been residing in the capital of the Republic 

* See his^Geographical and Statistical Atlas. 



14 

of Paraguay for several years returned thence a few months ago. 
I shall, therefore, draw upon him for information touching this 
interesting river and region of country : also, Francis del Castel- 
nau, who traveled through that country in 1848-9, is quite full. 

He also will afford me many details. 

According to Hopkins, Paraguay is but another paradise.* 
Of this country and its commercial resources, says he : 

"I can speak with the greatest certainty, from my own personal knowledge. 
Almost divided by the Tropic of Capricorn, its surface is like a chess-board, 
checkered here and there with beautiful pastures and magnificent forests. Unlike 
all other lands with which I am acquainted, it seems destined especially for the 
habitation of man. Here, in the eastern portion of our own land, the first settlers 
found the whole country covered with woods ; west of the Mississippi the other 
extreme exists, in the vast extent of prairie, destitute of timber. On the north 
of Brazil, in a similar manner, are unbroken forests; in its southern parts, 
and throughout the Bancla-Oriental, Entre-Rios, Corrientes, and the Argentine 
Republic, we find continuous pampas, like our prairies, in many instances with- 
out bearing the necessary fuel even for household purposes. Not so in Paraguay, 
where, added to a sufficiency for building fleets of a thousand steamers, its 
forests teem with every description of ornamental and useful woods. 

" Beginning with the head-waters of the river Paraguay, we find the productions 
upon the Brazilian side to be gold and precious stones, sugar, molasses, hides of 
extraordinary size, hair, tallow, wax, deer and tiger skins, with rice, corn, and 
the different manufactures of the mandioca root ; in Bolivia, gold and precious 
stones, silver, coffee — considered by good judges to be equal to Mocha — and 
Peruvian bark. 

"Though undoubtedly we could draw from these two countries many other 
productions of tropical America, yet it is in Paraguay that we find the greatest 
wealth of all these valleys." 

Of medicinal herbs, they yield in great profusion " rhubarb, 
sarsaparilla, jalap, bezonia indica, sassafras, holy wood, dragons' 
blood, balsam of copayva, nux vomica, liquorice, and ginger."f 

Here, too, are found dye-stuffs of the most exquisite tints. 
Among these includes cochineal, two kinds of indigo, a " vegeta- 
ble vermilion, saffron, golden-rod, with other plants, producing 
all the tints of dark red, black, and green. "f 

In the forests are found sixty varieties of wood, valuable for 
ship-building, or as timber, or for cabinet work. Among them 
are the " Seibo tree," which, "when green, is spongy and soft as 
cork, and can" be cut like an apple, but when dry is so hard as 
almost to defy the action of steel ; the Palo de vivora, or snake- 
tree, whose leaves are an infallible cure for the poisonous bite of 
serpents ; Palo de leche, or milk tree, may be called a vegetable 
cow ; and the Palo de borracho, or drunken tree, a vegetable dis- 
tillery. The icica resin is found at the roots of trees under 
ground, and is a natural pitch, ready prepared to pay the seams 
of vessels. "f 

* See Bulletin of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, vol. 1. 
Memoir on Paraguay, by E. A. Hopkins, esq., United States Consul in Paraguay. 
t Hopkins. 



16 

Many of them are said to yield gums and drugs of the rarest 
virtues, and of the most exquisite perfume. Though, coming 
from a far country, which commerce, in her loftiest flights has 
not yet been able to reach, many of these productions are not 
yet known to pharmacy or the mechanic arts. " They com- 
prise," says Hopkins, "some of the most delicious perfumes and 
incense that can be imagined. Others again are like amber, hard, 
brittle, and insoluble in water. Some cedars yield a gum equal 
to gum arabic ; others a natural glue, which, when once dried, 
is unaffected by wet or dampness." 

Here, too, in these wilds flourish side by side the India-rubber 
tree, the vanilla, with its sweet-scented bean, and the Palo-santo> 
from which the gum guaiacum of our commerce is gathered. 

Wild, too, in those wonderful forests grow, mature, and decay 
annually and in large quantities, two or three kinds of hemp, 
the nux seponica, or soap-nut, the coca, yerba, mattd of superior 
quality, two kinds of cotton with vegetable oils, and wax in vast 
quantities. 

The pampas are grazed by immense herds of cattle and horses ; 
and great quantities of " hides, hair, horns, bones, tallow, &c, 
are lost for want of transportation." 

"Upon the fertile alluvial banks of so many large streams, sugar-cane, cotton, 
tobacco of a superior quality, rice, mandioca, Indian corn, and a thousand other 
productions vegetate with profusion ; whilst seven varieties of the bamboo line 
the river banks and dot the frequent lakes with islets of touching beauty."* 

In short, this traveler thus sums up his account of this glorious 
valley : 

" We have found the forests spontaneously producing everything necessary for 
the comfort and luxury of mankind, from the beautiful cotton-tree that affords 
him clothing, to the colors which suit his fancy as a dye ; and from the woods 
that furnish his ship and house, or ornament his escritoire, to the herb that cures 
his sickness, or the incense that delights his olfactories. It is only necessary to 
add, that the climate is favorable to all the useful grains and table vegetables, 
with delicious fruits to support the frame and gratify the palate." 

But from the Republic of Paraguay, where Hopkins was, to 
the mouth of the La Plata, there were only some 1,500 miles of 
river navigation. Let us, therefore, ascend higher up the beau- 
tiful Paraguay, cross over into Brazil, ascend this river through 
the district "Dos Diamantes" to the city of " Diamantino" and 
thence trace its sources, up over their beds of bright jewels and 
golden sands, to their very fountain-head as they leap spangled 
and sparkling from the " Diamond mountains." 

Standing on these, we may contemplate the great "Divide," 
which separates the waters — if they be separated — of the Rio de 
la Plata from the waters of the Amazon. 

This ridge extends from east to west over the distance in a 



10 

straight line of more than 2,000 statute miles. On one side the 
streams run south; on the other, they flow north; and on both 
sides they wash down from this ridge, gold, diamonds, and other 
precious stones. This auriferous and rich mineral region em- 
braces many degrees of latitude, and extends through 30° of 
longitude. I propose to speak more of it at another time. 

It is a question whether the waters of the La Plata and the 
Amazon do not unite through a natural canal, as do those of the 
Amazon and the Orinoco through the Casiqueare, and thus afford 
an inland navigation from Buenos Ayres, in 35° south, to the 
mouth of the Orinoco, where it empties in 11° north into the Ca- 
ribbean sea. Truly such a navigation would be bringing the com- 
mercial drainage of the Atlantic slopes of South America not only 
at our feet, but it would be emptying their treasures into the very 
lap into which our own Mississippi pours its waters, its surplus 
produce, and its wealth. 

At any rate, whether there be a natural canal there now or not, 
we may look forward to the time when settlement, steam, and 
civilization shall have taken root upon the great Amazon water- 
shed, to see canals and channels which, if nature have not com- 
pleted, art will, by which the La Plata will be turned upside down, 
and its mouth placed, for all the practical purposes of commerce, 
under the equator, where the Amazon discharges itself into the 
sea. 

Castelnau, a French savant, who was sent by Louis Philippe, 
in 1843, to explore the interior of the country, and who went 
from Rio along this "divide" over to Bolivia, thence to Lima, 
and then across the Andes and down the Amazon to its mouth, 
gives much new and valuable information concerning this whole 
country. He was gone four or five years, and the first part of 
his travels has just been published. 

The principal object of his expedition, he says, " was to study 
in all its bearings the vast basin of the Amazon, which is destined 
to play a grand part in the future history of America;" "for," 
he adds, ".the utter neglect of this river-basin by the nations of 
Europe will one day greatly astonish the political and commer- 
cial world." 

" An excursion in the northern parts of the province of Matto Grosso (says 
Castelnau) afforded us an opportunity of determining the position of the sources 
of the Paraguay, as well as of the Tapajos ; and we could contemplate at the 
same time the arms of the two greatest rivers in the world — the La Plata and 
the Amazon — as they leaped from the bowels of the earth at our feet, and inter- 
locked one with the other. Again, and as if to render more attractive to men 
this curious and interesting spot, Nature has placed her mines of diamonds in a 
region of country where their value is small in comparison with the great advan- 
tages which commerce is one day to reap from this marvelous junction of waters." 

It was in this region that tho intrepid old Sergeant Joao do 



17 

Souza found a natural tunnel through which the Sumidouro — so 
called because it runs for about the quarter of a league under a 
mountain — carries its waters to pay tribute to the Amazon. 

Setting out from Cuyaba, in 1746, he descended the river of 
that name to the Paraguay, which he ascended to the mouth of 
the Seputuba. FolloAving this to its sources, he then cut with a 
hatchet a way through the forest for three leagues, over which he 
transported his vessels, and embarked them upon the Sumidouro. 
Following this river till it disappeared under a mountain, he then 
disembarked, and sent his vessels through. Then going across 
the mountain to the place where the river comes out again, he 
had the good luck to find his vessels had passed through without 
damage. 

Re-embarking, he then descended the Arinas and Amazon to 
Para, where he was put in prison on account of his discoveries ; 
for it was the policy of Portugal, and has since been that of 
Brazil, to be as exclusive as Japan, with regard to these great 
basins, and the treasures they contain. 



IS 



CHAPTER III. 

The Paraguay country — Cattle raising — Gold and diamonds — An immense drug 
plantation — The riches of the vegetable exceed those of the mineral king- 
dom — Gold washing in the streets — Immense yield of diamonds — Mule trans- 
portation — A commercial anomaly — Communication between the La Plata and 
the Amazon — Japanese policy of Brazil — Humboldt ordered to be made pris- 
oner — Exploration of the Amazon by officers of the U. S. Navy — Lieut. Hern- 
don's report — Pilcomayo — " City of Silver" — Magnificent view of the produc- 
tions of tropical, temperate, and frigid zones. 

The Republic of Paraguay lies between the parallels of 22 deg. 
and 28 deg. south latitude. It may be said, therefore, to be 
eatfra-tropical. 

The Brazilian province of Matto Grosso lies between the 
parallel of 7 deg. south and the Tropic of Capricorn. It is inter- 
tropical. Its productions, therefore, it may be supposed, are 
different in many respects from those of Paraguay. 

This province of Matto Grosso, in its greatest length and 
breadth, measures 16 deg. of latitude by 16 deg. of longitude. 

Passing midway through it on a zigzag course from east to 
west is the great "divide," which separates the waters of the 
Amazon from the waters of the Rio de la Plata. From one end 
of this ridge to the other, from the Atlantic to the Andes, gold, 
diamonds, and precious stones are dug from its sides or washed 
from its streams. 

On the northern slopes of it, the Tocantins, the Chingu, the 
Tapajos, and the Madeira, tributaries to the Amazon, and larger 
than any of the rivers of Europe, take their rise. Also the 
Paranahiba, which empties directly into the Atlantic, has its 
sources among the northern ravines of this auriferous slope. 

On its southern declivities the fountain heads of the Parana 
and Paraguay are found sending forth bright sparkling streams, 
which, like threads of silver, are seen winding their way through 
the most luxuriant vegetation and over sands of gold and pebbles 
interspersed with brilliants, to unite and swell out into the mighty 
"River of Silver," as the La Plata is called. 

Let us therefore leave the country of old Francia for that of 
Matto Grosso and Brazil. 

The traveler leaving the republic, and ascending the Paraguay 
to the celebrated gold and diamond region of Matto Grosso, finds 
on either hand, as he goes up, a charming country, diversified 
with pampas and groves of great beauty and extent. 

Turning up the Mendingo, which comes in from the east, and 
ascending the same for seventy or eighty miles, he comes to the 
village m Miranda. 



i 



19 

The people in the neighborhood are industrious. They raise 
large herds of cattle and great numbers of horses. They culti- 
vate, in great abundance, the sugar-cane, Indian corn, pulse, 
manioc, and cotton. The climate is salubrious and delightful — 
many of the inhabitants reaching the age of one hundred years. 

It was here that Dr. Weddell, the botanist, saw the "nicaya" 
with its elegant foliage, the fruit of which was described by the 
Indians to be of an oblong form, and to contain a natural confec- 
tion of which they are very fond. 

Throughout this region they have immense quantities of the 
beautiful violet and other ornamental woods, which are used for 
firewood; for though of great value in the cabinet-shops, the 
people here have no other way, notwithstanding their fine navi- 
gable streams, of getting these woods to the seaboard except on 
the backs of mules. 

Returning to the Paraguay, the scene is enlivened by the 
immense herds that are feeding upon the now evergreen pastures 
of the plains. The value of these herds consists chiefly in their 
horns and hides. 

The village of Pocone, at the mouth of the Cuyaba, is one of 
the most flourishing places in the interior of Brazil. Castelnau 
says (and until otherwise stated, he is my chief authority for 
what follows) that as many as 8,000 or 10,000 head of cattle are 
owned by single individuals in that village. 

Passing Pocone on the right, and taking the left fork of the 
river which retains the name of Paraguay, we reach, at the dis- 
tance of about 150 miles above it, the frontier Brazilian fort of 
Villa Maria. 

The guns that are mounted in this fort were brought up the 
Amazon to the Tapajos, thence by that river up the Arinas, 
thence by portage across the diamond regions to the head-waters 
of the Cuyabd into the Paraguay, and so up stream to Villa 
Maria. 

On the west there are several fine rivers, which, rising in 
Bolivia and Brazil, fall into the Paraguay above the mouth of 
the Cuyaba. Several of these streams interlock with the head- 
waters of the Madeira, which is to the Amazon what the Missouri 
is to the Mississippi. I shall have occasion again to speak of 
these tributaries, of the splendid country watered by them, and 
of the portage between them. 

Villa Maria is in the midst of the great ipecacuanha region of 
Matto Grosso. In 1814 Francisco Real was sent to explore the 
diamond region of this province. But it turned out with him as 
I apprehend it would turn out with the pioneers of commerce 
now: as rich in diamonds as are the streams and gravel beds of 



20 

this province, the riches of the vegetable were found greatly to 
exceed those of the mineral kingdom. 

This immense natural plantation includes within one field an 
area of 3,000 square miles. The crop is perennial, and may be 
gathered the year round. One expert hand may collect fifteen 
pounds of this root in a day, which brought in Rio $1 the pound. 
The work of an ordinary hand is five pounds the day, and the 
cost of laborers from $3 40 to $4 per month. 

Castelnau estimates that from 1830 to 1837 not less than 
800,000 pounds of this drug were exported from this province to 
Rio. This abundant supply brought down its price. But here 
is the singular feature of this trade : this produce is taken from 
the very banks of one of the noblest rivers in the world, and 
transported by mules for the distance of 1,200 miles to the sea- 
coast, in spite of Nature's great highway. 

The ipecacuanha delights in flat or sandy soil, and is found 
also in great abundance on the banks of the Vermilho, the Sepu- 
tuba, and the Cabac,al. 

Vanilla is also abundant. Its price, when Castelnau was at 
Villa Maria, was sixty cents the pound. 

But I intended to follow this intelligent traveler up into the 
diamond country, and with him to visit the "divide" between 
the waters of the Paraguay and Tapajos. 

Ascending the Cuyabd, which is the principal Brazilian tribu- 
tary of the Paraguay, about 150 miles from its mouth you come 
to the flourishing city of Cuyabd, the capital of the province of 
Matto Grosso. It has a population of about 7,000. It carries 
on a brisk commerce with Rio by caravans numbering from 200 
to 300 mules each. This commerce consists of hides, jaguar and 
deer skins, gold-dust, diamonds, ipecacuanha, and the like. The 
freight to Rio is about $15 the 100 pounds. 

Here, perhaps, among all the wonderful things that are found 
in these great river-basins of South America, is the most wonder- 
ful of them all — a city the capital of a province larger than all 
of the "Old Thirteen States" of this confederacy put together, 
and occupying on the banks of the La Plata very nearly the 
relative position which St. Louis occupies on the banks of the 
Mississippi, carrying on its commerce, not by steam and water, 
but by the mule-load, and over such a distance from the sea-coast, 
that the time occupied by each caravan in going and returning is 
from ten to twelve months. 

That this state of things should, in the middle of the 19th 
century, be found to exist in the middle of South America, upon 
one of the finest of steamboat water-courses in the world, whose 
navigable tributaries are owned by no less than five separate and 
independent nations, and which the "policy of commerce" has 



21 

not yet demanded to be thrown wide open to navigation and 
commerce, will, in after times, be regarded as more wonderful than 
any other reality of this wonderful region. 

Nay, Brazil has, within a stone's throw of this very capital, 
and by easy portage, the navigable waters of her own Amazon ; 
and yet so fearful has she been that the steamboat on those 
waters would reveal to the world the exceeding great riches of 
this province, that we have here re-enacted under our own eyes 
a worse than Japanese policy ; for it excludes from settlement 
and cultivation, from commerce and civilization, the finest country 
in the world. The Atlantic slopes of South America form a 
country which is larger than the continent of Europe, in which 
there is an everlasting harvest of the choicest fruits of the earth. 
It is therefore capable of sustaining a population larger than that 
by which Europe is inhabited. 

Cuyabtt is in the midst of the gold region of this splendid 
country. The metal is found in veins, among the pebbles at the 
bottom of the brooks, and in fine grains in the soil. After every 
rain the servants and children may be seen gathering it from the 
washings of the streets in Cuyaba. 

They get in this city a drug from the Amazon called guarana, 
of which the consumption is enormous, and to which medicinal 
virtues the most astonishing are ascribed. 

On the head-waters of the Cuyabd is the celebrated diamond 
district of Brazil ; and though in this day of sober realities it 
cannot be said that the city of Diamantino, the principal village 
of the district, has its streets paved with diamonds, yet these 
jewels are found there mixed with the earth, like gold in the 
'•'diggings" of California. 

Just before Castelnau was there, a man planting a post to 
which to tie his mule found a diamond of 9 carats. The children 
here wash the earth in the streets for gold, and diamonds are 
sometimes found in the crops of the fowls. 

This stone is found in the bottom of the streams ; and the 
most celebrated for it are the Ouro, the Diamantino, and the 
Santa Anna, in their whole length ; the Arinas ; the San Fran- 
ciscos, of which there are three ; and on the Paraguay itself for 
a considerable distance down the main stream. 

The Sumidouro, which is on the Amazonian Side of this ridge, 
is said also to be exceedingly rich in diamonds. 

A Spaniard, one Don Simon, with his slaves, washing on the 
Santa Anna during the dry season only, got in four years 7,000 
carats of diamonds. 

Castelnau estimates the whole vield of diamonds from Brazil 
to the end of 1849 at near §80,000,000. 

It is the mineral wealth of this water-shed between the La 



22 

Blata and the Amazon, operating with its gold and its diamonds 
upon the cupidity of her counsellers, that has been the curse of 
Prazil. 

At first the diamonds belonged to the Crown, and no person 
was allowed to visit the diamond district unless under the 
strictest surveillance. Military posts were established through- 
out the whole region to prevent people from gathering its mineral 
wealth. 

Suppose the United States had established military posts in 
California to prevent the people from going there and digging 
for gold, what would have been the condition of that State now 
in comparison to what it is ? It would have been as the interior 
of Brazil now is. 

The policy of Brazil has been not only to shut out commerce, 
nut to shut up from observation the wonderful resources, capa- 
bilities, and capacities of the finest country in the world ; and 
among the immense treasures which lie dormant and undeveloped 
there, I class the precious stones and metals as among the least 
of the truly valuable. 

There is now in Rio the original of an order issued when 
Humboldt was traveling in South America, ordering that great 
man to be made prisoner, and sent out of the country, should he 
once set foot on Brazilian territory. 

And it has been but two or three years ago that application 
was made by this government to that of Brazil for permission to 
send a steamer up the Amazon to explore it, not for the benefit 
of the United States alone, but for the good of commerce, science, 
and the world. Permission was refused. The consequence was, 
two officers of the navy were ordered to cross over the Andes 
from Lima, and descend the Amazon as they might. One of 
these officers (Lieut. Hernclon, U. S. N.) has just returned, and 
is now engaged with his report ; the other (Lieut. Gibbon) is still 
on his way down. 

Thus, in consequence of this Japanese spirit that still lingers 
in Brazil, our officers, in pursuit of science and of knowledge for 
the benefit of the human family, were, by this dog-in-the-manger 
policy, compelled to undergo all sorts of exposure, and, living on 
monkeys and sea-cows, to descend that mighty river, from its 
sources to its mouth, on rafts, in dug-outs, and upon such floating 
things as they could find. The reports of these officers will no 
doubt open the eyes of the country to the importance of this 
region. 

On the ridge to the north of Diamantino, Castelnau saw the 
waters of the La Plata and the Amazon flowing from the same 
farm: 



28 

" We found (says he) one of the very sources of the Amola, (a tributary of the 
Cuyaba,) which rises in a ravine of the plateau, and flows toward the south ; it 
is NNW from the fork of it, which they say is a little more elevated. These two 
sources unite almost immediately in the valley to form the Amola, which crosses 
the road of Kebo. The farm of Estivado, where we were, is situated on one of 
the most interesting points which the continent presents. There, in fact, and at 
a few steps one from the other, arise the sources of two of the greatest rivers in 
the world — the Amazon and the La Plata. It may one day be very easy to estab- 
lish a communication between these gigantic streams ; for the master of the 
house, as he told us himself, had attempted, simply for the purpose of irrigating 
his garden, to turn the waters of one river into the bed of the other. The source 
of the river Estivado, the true branch of the Arinas, is found in a hollow in the 
plateau, whose shed is turned toward the north about 650 feet east of the house 
of the same name ; and 275 feet west of this appears, in a little grove, the source 
of an affluent of the Tombador, which is known to be one of the tributeries of the 
Cuyaba. 

" The farm of Estivado is therefore on the dividing line of the waters which 
flow north and those which flow south. The same phendomenon is observed in 
Macu ; in the times of great floods there is a torrent whose waters at a certain 
point separate in such a manner that on the one hand they flow to the Cuyaba, 
and on the other to the Tapajos. 

"All this great plateau is on the dividing line of the waters. The superin- 
tendent of Estivado told us that once a canoe had been carried from Cuyaba in 
the Arinas by means of a portage of only four leagues across the Chapola, and 
the proprietor of Macu had proposed to establish this communication." 

Diamantino carries on a direct trade with Para, by the Arinas, 
the Tapajos, and Amazon. The place of embarkation is ten 
leagues from the village, and the voyage up and down, thence to 
Para, occupies eight months. The Tapajos is said to be sickly. 

The foreign merchandise that reaches Diamantino by this 
route is sold at an advance, on the average, of eight hundred and 
fifty per cent, on its price in Para, which is some fifty or one 
hundred per cent, on New York prices. 

Were this trade large, as at present it is not — and without 
steamboat navigation can never be — Pennsylvania, no doubt, would 
rejoice in it ; for iron in Diamantino and the province of Matto 
Grosso generally sells at $25 the 100 lbs. — five hundred and 
fifty dollars the ton ! — a price which ought surely to satisfy the 
iron men of any country. Salt sells at $18 the 100 lbs. ; flour 
at $40 per barrel. 

Castelnau quotes the Para and Diamantino prices of thirty-four 
of the principal foreign articles of trade between the two places, 
and the average advance in Diamantino upon these Para prices 
is, as I have stated, 850 per cent. 

Passing from this benighted country over into Bolivia , Castel- 
nau came to an entirely different sort of people. Industrious 
and thriving, the Bolivians, as they contemplate their lovely rivers, 
the Pilcomayo and the Madeira, sigh for the steamboat and the 
free navigation of the La Plata and the Amazon. 

The Pilcomayo takes its rise under the south wall of their 
beautiful " Silver City," as Chuquisaca is called. The Vermejo, 






24 

another large Bolivian tributary of the La Plata, has its sources 
further south. After a course of a thousand miles to the south- 
ward and eastward, these streams empty into the Paraguay ; and 
so anxious is Bolivia for the steam navigation of these rivers that 
she has, I am told, offered a bonus of $20,000 to the first steam- 
boat that will ascend the Pilcomayo to the head of navigation. 

Chuquisaca stands on a spur of a mountain which juts out 
from the Andes, and constitutes the " divide" between the head- 
waters of the Pilcomayo and the Madeira. This latter, taking 
its rise under the north wall of this city, and joining a tributary 
which comes down from the city of Chochabamba, takes a sweep 
of some three hundred miles to the southward and eastward ; 
then, recovering itself, and swollen by the numerous tributaries 
received by the way, it turns north towards the Amazon, and 
flows by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, (the present capital of the 
republic,) a magnificent sheet of water. 

From the two first-named cities, by the windings of the Ma- 
deira to the ocean, the distance is upwards of two thousand miles, 
more than half of which is in Bolivian territory. Well may that 
republic, therefore, sigh for river steamers and the right of way 
up and down the Amazon. 

The climate of Bolivia is one of the finest tropical climates in 
the world. Indeed, its climates and productions may be consid- 
ered to include those of all the habitable portions of the globe. 

Here, one seated at the foot of a mountain, and surrounded 
with the luscious fruits of the tropics, may, casting his eye up 
towards the snow-capped peak above him, take in at one view 
the whole range of the vegetable gamut. Beginning with the 
chirimoya, the pine apple, the orange, and the vanilla, as they 
cast their fragrance around, he passes through, as he ascends, 
groves of the olive and the vine, the peach and the pear, until 
finally, having completed the vegetable notation in the order of 
production through the Torrid and Temperate zones, he reaches 
the Frigid, and with its cap of snow he finds the summit crowned 
with the mosses and the lichens of the Polar regions. 

About one-half of Bolivia is in the valley of the Amazon ; one- 
fourth in the valley of the La Plata ; and the rest, which is not 
desert or mountain, is in the valley of Lake Titicaca, that inland 
basin in which the Incas and civilization of Peru had their origin. 



25 



CHAPTER IV. 

Bolivia tributary to the Atlantic — Friendly disposition to the United States 
policy of commerce — Free navigation of the Amazon — Llamas and wool — Lieut. 
Gibbon — Potosi — Gold, silver, diamonds, and quicksilver — Peruvian bark — 
Wonderful fertility of soil — Hot springs, and ruins — Coca, its marvellous 
properties — Salt — Portage between the La Plata and Amazon — The lost mines 
of Urucumaguan, their fabulous wealth — Gold washings — Ports of entry, and 
steam navigation upon the Amazonian tributaries of Bolivia — Interesting 
letter — Health and longevity — Opening the navigation of the Amazon — Free 
ports in Bolivia — A prize of $10,000 to the first American steamer — Lieut. 
Gibbon. 

Bolivia has but one seaport on the Pacific : that is Cobija — an 
open roadstead, and a miserable village, at the head of the great 
desert of Atacama. The land transportation between this port 
and the agricultural districts of the republic is too rough, too 
tedious, and too expensive ever to admit of its becoming a com- 
mercial emporium. The direction in which Bolivia looks for an 
outlet to market for her produce is along her navigable water- 
courses that empty into the Amazon, and then down that stream 
to the sea, where the winds and the currents are such as to 
require that produce to pass by our doors. 

Bolivia understands this, and her President has expressed the 
most earnest desire to draw closely the bonds of friendship, com- 
merce, and navigation which are destined to bind his country to 
this. 

Bolivia, we have seen, owns navigable streams that are tributary 
both to the Amazon and La Plata. The free air of heaven and 
the glad waters of the earth were put here by the Almighty for 
the well-being of mankind. Use without exhaustion is the only 
condition annexed by the laws of man to the air and water being 
considered as the common property of the world. 

Have not, therefore, Bolivia and the seven other independent 
nations that own navigable streams emptying into the Amazon 
or the La Plata, but which do not own its mouth, the right to 
follow and to " use without exhaustion" each its own navigable 
waters to the sea ? And does not the " policy of commerce" 
require the enforcement of that right, so far as it concerns any or 
all of these eight upland nations which may wish to trade with us 
and the rest of the world through those natural channels and 
commercial highways ? 

This is one of the questions that I propose to consider. But 
before showing who it is that by a Japanese policy here at our 
doors is shutting out commerce from the finest portions of the 



26 

world, I wish to show that the free navigation of the Amazon is 
not an abstraction, but that there are now there, in actual exist- 
ence, all the elements of a profitable, large, and growing com- 
merce, and that therefore the question is one of practical import- 
tance. I will therefore speak of the productions of this interesting 
— I had almost said classic — land. 

In the Puna country of Bolivia we find the llama, the vicuna, 
and the alpaca. Immense flocks of sheep feed in its pastures 
and lie down upon its hills. 

My friend, Lieutenant Gibbon, who about two years ago was 
sent with Lieutenant Herndon by the Navy Department to explore 
the Amazon from its sources to its mouth, writes that it is a wool- 
growing country ; that immense flocks of sheep are tended there. 
Indeed, he says the country is over-populated. 

Speaking a few weeks since with a northern manufacturer 
upon this subject, he informed me that he had then just bought 
$100,000 worth of this Puna wool, which, instead of coming 
down the Amazon, in sight of which almost it was clipped, this 
Japanese policy, that keeps the mouth of that river closed, had 
been compelled to go up into the region of the clouds, in order 
that it might cross the Andes and reach the free waters of the 
Pacific. Its voyage was then around Cape Horn to Boston. 

Chuquisaca, or the " City of Silver," is situated, as already 
stated, on the "divide" between the Amazon and the La Plata. 

On one side the waters of the Pilcomayo flow south ; on the 
other, those of the Madeira flow north, on their way to the "king 
of rivers." 

Near by Chuquisaca is Potosi. Here we pass from the regions 
of gold and diamonds to those of quicksilver and silver. 

Since the discovery of the mines of Potosi there have been 
extracted from them not less than sixteen hundred millions of 
dollars I The vein is said to be as rich now as ever it was ; but 
it is not worked for the want of mechanical force, such as steam 
and the facilities of commerce alone can give. 

It is from the Atlantic slopes of Bolivia that we get the bark 
for the manufacture of quinine. The cinchona, or the Peruvian bark 
as it is called, is gathered there on those navigable water-courses 
of the Atlantic, and taken thence on the backs of sheep and asses 
six hundred miles across the Andes to the Pacific. 

Two millions dollars' worth of this bark was gathered there 
the last year. Does not this afford a commercial bases sufficient 
to support steam navigation up the Amazon to Bolivia ? Bolivia 
has there a thrifty and industrious population of a million and a 
half, whose commercial wants would be supplied by this new 
route. One of her cities (Potosi) has been supplied with water, 
at the cost of $3,000,000 to construct the works. Can commerce 



27 

with such a people be an abstraction ? The productions of the 
eastern slopes of Bolivia are thus described by Castelnau : 

"The productions of the country are in great variety. Sugar-cane, which is 
gathered eight months after planting, is the staple of the province of Cercado. 
Coffee, successfully cultivated in this province, as well as in that of Chiquitos, 
yields fruit in two years after being planted, requiring but the slightest care. 
The cacao, recently introduced into these two provinces, bears in three or four 
years at most. The tamarind, which succeeds in the same localities, but espe- 
cially in the country of Chiquitos, requires five years. 

"Cotton yields annual crops: there are two species — the white and the 
yellow. 

"Tobacco grows, so to speak, without cultivation in the province of Valle- 
Grande, in which it is the principal article of trade. Indigo, of which there are 
three cultivated species, and one wild, is equally abundant. Maize ripens in 
three months, without regard to season. It is cultivated more particularly in 
the province of Cercado. 

" The cassada produces in eight months after planting. There are two species 
of it — the one sweet, the other bitter; the former is a substitute for the potato, 
and even for bread itself — the latter strves only to make starch. There are 
many varieties or species of bananas, which produce a year after planting. 
They are cultivated especially in the province of Cercado. Two species of rice, 
white and red, are cultivated, both in the province of Cercado and Chiquitos, 
yielding crops every five or six months. It is said to grow wild in the country 
of Chiquitos. 

" The vine, which flourishes particularly in the province of Cordillera, where 
it was cultivated in the missions until the epoch of independence, is not now 
made use of. It will, perhaps, hereafter be one of the principal products of that 
country. 

"Wheat, barley, and the potato could be cultivated with advantage in the 
provinces of Chiquitos and Cordillera, but at this time they are neglected, except 
in the province of Valle-Grande. The culture of coca has commenced in the 
province of Cercado, where it is found wild ; so also the quinquina on the moun- 
tains of Samai'pata. As already mentioned, fruit abounds in this region — 
oranges, lemons, citrons, figs, papayes, pomegranates, muskmelons, watermelons, 
chirimoyas, (which the Brazilians call fruta do conde,) pineapples, &c. The last 
mentioned of these fruits grows wild and in great abundance in the woods of 
Chiquitos. We met with it particularly the day before our arrival at Santa 
Anna. It is fine flavored, but left such a burning sensation in the mouth that I 
bitterly repented having tasted it. 

" In the province are gathered in great abundance jalap, quinquina bark, 
sarsaparilla, vanilla, roucou, copahu, ipecacuanha, caoutchouc, copal, &c. 

"Dye-woods, cabinet-woods, and building timber abound. The inhabitants 
gather with care great quantities of gums, roots, and barks, to Avhich they attri- 
bute medicinal virtues of every kind. At several points in the department, 
especially in the provinces of Valle-Grande and Cordillera, are found iron, and 
traces of mercury. Gold is found in the province of Cercado, near the Pueblo 
de San Xavia. Mines of silver were worked in the mountains of Colchiis by the 
Jesuits. Don Sebastian Rancos, whilst he was governor of Chiquitos, announced 
to the government that diamonds of a very fine water had been found in the 
brooks about Santo-Corazon." 

So anxious is Bolivia for the introduction of the steamboat 
upon her rivers, that she has offered for it in fee simple 20,000 
square miles of her richest lands. 

To add to the interest, the resources, the charms, and wealth 
of this country, there are the hot springs of Tolula with their 
wonderful properties ; the ruins of Samaipata and Tiahuanaco, 



28 

which, with their symbols and their hieroglyphic records, tell 
of a people anterior to the Incas, and, in the opinion of Cas- 
telnau, as superior to them in civilization as the conquerors were. 

The forest of the Madeira valley, the passage through which, 
notwithstanding all that he had seen on his way from Rio through 
Brazil to this point, excited to raptures the imagination of this 
observant traveler. " The landscape," says he, "was the most 
beautiful, and the vegetation, changing its aspect every instant, 
constantly presented new objects to us." 

The beautiful valleys of the Cordilleras, which produce the 
coca plant, were to him objects also of great interest. " This 
vegetable," says he, "has properties so marvelous that it enables 
the Indians, without any other nourishment the while, to perform 
forced marches of five or six days." It is a stimulant, and by 
chewing it alone the Indians will perform journeys of 300 miles 
without appearing in the least fatigued.* 

In the province of Chichos are many mines of silver, and vast 
herds of cattle. 

In the province of Lipaz, where the climate is cold and the 
agricultural staple barley, llamas, vicuiias, alpacas, with deer 
and the beautiful chinchillos, abound. Here a kind of copperas 
called "piedra lipdz" is found; also, amethysts and other pre- 
cious stones ; and here, too, is a great plain, 18 by 120 miles, 
covered with salt all ready fit for table use. 

The Paray, a tributary of the Amazon through the Madeira, 



* The coca is described by Castelnau as a bush which rarely attains six feet 
in height, and does not often exceed three ; its foliage is of a bright green, its 
flower white, and its fruit small and red. When the plants are about eighteen 
inches high they are transplanted from the seed beds into fields called cocales. 
The ripe leaves are gathered with the fingers. They are dried by spreading 
them in the sun, sometimes on woolen cloths. This operation requires great 
care ; for the plant must be protected from all dampness, which changes its 
color, and thus diminishes its value. It is then packed in bags, weighing from 
fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds, which are often transported to great dis- 
tances. The Indians mix the coca with a small quantity of lime, and constantly 
carry a small bag of it in all their excursions. They take it from three to six 
times a day. Dr. Tschudi (Travels in Peru, page 453) mentions an Indian of 
sixty-two years of age, who was employed by him, and though at very hard work 
for five days took no other nourishment, and rested but two hours of the night. 
Immediately, or soon after this, he accomplished a journey of one hundred miles 
in two days, and said that he was ready to do the same thing again if they would 
give him a new supply of coca. Castelnau says he himself knew of instances as 
extraordinary. In the time of the Incas the coca was regarded as sacred. 

The importance of the coca trade, however, is diminishing as the red man 
disappears. From 1785 to 1789, inclusively, Castelnau represents the consump- 
tion of this leaf in the vice-royalty of Lima alone at three millions and a half of 
pounds, and worth one million and a quarter of money, and the total consump- 
tion of Peru at two millions and a half of dollars. 

The question comes up, therefore : May not the free navigation of the Amazon 
introduce this valuable plant into the commerce of the world ? 



29 

is navigable to Cuatro-Ojos, which is thirty leagues only from 
Santa Cruz, the capital of the republic. 

But Lipaz is far to the south. It is of the Amazonian water- 
shed that I now wish to speak; though the tributaries of the 
great branches of the Amazon and the La Plata, of the Madeira, 
the Tapajos, and the Paraguay, so interlap among themselves 
that it is as difficult to find the " divide" between the Madeira and 
the Paraguay as it is to find it between the Madeira and the 
Tapajos. 

In 1772 Louis Pinto de Souza caused a vessel of considerable 
size to be transported from the head-waters of the Madeira to 
those of the La Plata, that he might thus set the example of an 
inland navigation. The portage between the navigable waters 
of the two was only two miles and a half. 

It is among the upper tributaries of the Madeira that tradi- 
tion of the country places the lost mines of Urucumaguan, with 
riches equal in value to the fabulous wealth of the gilded city of 
Manoa.* 

On the banks of this stream are now found placers, which, 
using only gourds and calabashes for washers, will give the miner 
his f 2 or $3 per day. 

Lakes, too, are found up its tributaries, which yield the most 
abundant supplies of salt. The rivers abound in fish, and the 
woods with game. 

Lieutenant Gibbon went to Bolivia to explore the valley of the 
Madeira, and he is now on his way down that river. The Boli- 
vians hailed him as a benefactor, and afforded him every facility 
in their power. 

While he was in Cochabamba the attention of that government 
was called to the subject of establishing, on the navigable waters 
of the Madeira, ports of entry to foreign commerce, and of con- 
tracting with a company to put steamers on her water-courses. 
The President of the republic received the proposition in the 
most gracious manner. Hence the valley of the Madeira becomes 
an object of special interest at this time, and I may therefore be 
pardoned for lingering in it so long. 

Much of that country is unknown, and the stories that are 
told of its riches and its productions are so dazzling that we of a 
severe climate, accustomed as we are to a stingy soil, from which 
its fruits have to be wrung by long and patient labor, are disposed 
to receive eye-witness accounts of them with some degree of allow- 
ance at least. 

* Not long before Lieutenant Herndon was in Peru, a party of Peruvians who 
had been on a gold exploration to the Amazon country returned. 

They had nothing but gourds to wash with, and though they met with many 
untoward circumstances, they extracted seven hundred pounds of gold, and returned 
ht?me with it. 



30 

So far, I have made my statements with regard to this subject, 
partly upon the authority of intelligent citizens of that and the 
neighboring country with whom I have conversed in Peru, and 
partly upon the authority of M. Castelnau — a man of stand- 
ing and of erudition, who was sent out by the French govern- 
ment especially to examine that country, and with whom, therefore, 
over-coloring would be a crime ; and, finally, upon the authority 
of officers whom also the government of the United States has 
sent there for the same purpose. 

As being all of a piece with the reports which these give, I 
quote from the letter of a friend, written from Lima last summer, 
and which was before the publication of Castelnau's travels. 
Speaking of Bolivia and her enlightened President, that friend 
says : 

" Since I last wrote to you I have made the acquaintance of Don , a 

native of Chile, and whom Gibbon saw at Cochabamba, in Bolivia. This Don 

is undoubtedly a clever man. He says he has come to Lima to make 

some arrangement concerning the monopoly of Peruvian bark. * * * How- 
ever that may be, he pretends that Belzu, the President of Bolivia, is favorably 
disposed towards us, and would grant privileges to a steam navigation company 
were application made to him in due form. As I know of no other individual in 
Bolivia with whom I could communicate on the subject of Amazonian navigation, 
I did not hesitate to make use of him ; for, in my opinion, there is no time to be 
lost if the United States intend to secure the interior trade of South America for 

its citizens. Don declares that the Marmore is navigable for steamers 

from a point near Cochabamba to its confluence with the Guapure" or Itenez ; and 
so onward to the junction of the latter with the Bene - , forming together the Bio 
Madeira ; that the Cachuelas, or falls of the Madeira, are neither impassable nor 
formidable, and may be easily ascended by steamers, as there is plenty of water, 
and no rocks. To prove this, he asserts that a Brazilian schooner ascended the 
Marmore" to Trinidad, and fired a salute at that place, about two years ago. 
After passing the falls, the river is of course navigable to the Amazon. Admit- 
ting this statement to be true, (and I am inclined to believe it, as the Brazilians 
constantly ascend the Itenez to Matto Grosso,) there is open navigation from 
Para to within a few leagues of Cochabamba, at least 2,000 miles; and this is 
not so incredible when we consider the length of navigation on the Missouri 
river. The accessibility of the Bolivian rivers will, however, be ascertained with 
greater certainty after Gibbon has passed through the Cachuelas of the Madeira, 
as it is to be hoped that he will sound, or otherwise minutely examine, the differ- 
ent rapids of that river, and correct the errors which says are in the 

chart made by Palacios, a copy of which I sent you by Mr. O'Brian, for Herndon. 

" The account gives of the products of the country lying on the banks 

of the Marmore" is very glowing. He says that the richest cocoa and coffee grow 
almost wild, and that the greater part of the former is consumed by the monkeys 
and birds, for the want of means of transporting it to a market. Sugar-cane, of 
gigantic dimensions, is found everywhere ; white and yellow cotton, of a staple 
equal to Sea Island. Several kinds of cascarilla grow in abundance, as also 
sarsaparilla and gums, ornamental and other woods, and honey and wax, in 
immense quantities. Crossing the Marmore" from Exaltacion to the southwest, 

you arrive at the river Machuno, which, according to , is a small Pactolus ; 

and he assures me that the whole country between the Marmore" and the Itenez, 
from latitude 14 deg. to the north, is a gold district as rich as California. My 
opinion decidedly is, that the whole country traversed by the rivers opening from 
the slope of the eastern Coixlillera, from Santa Cruz de la Tierra, in Bolivia, to 
the mouth of the Ikayali, in Peru, is one immense gold and silver region — gold 



31 

being found in the flats near the rivers, and silver in the mountains. I will ven- 
ture to predict that the same region contains diamonds and other precious stones, 
and probably some unknown to the lapidary at present. 

" The silver mines of Carabaya were immensely productive when worked by 
Salcedo ; so much so, that the vice-regal government trumped up an accusation 
against him, tried, and ordered his execution, to obtain possession of the mines 
by confiscation. The attempt failed, as the Indians, who were devoted to 
Salcedo, refused to give any information to the government respecting the mines, 
and they have remained unworked up to the present time. Gold is known to 
exist in considerable quantities at Carabaya, and in the Pampa del Sacramento. 
I have seen specimens from the former place. But gold is the last attraction 
for emigration to Bolivia. The soil and its products are the source from which 
the wanderers from foreign lands are to find plenty and happiness. The climate 
is said to be good, and the Indians, except upon the lower part of the Bene", 

peaceable and well disposed to the whites. In short, according to , the 

east of Bolivia affords the greatest sphere for trade and colonization. 

Without, however, placing implicit credence in what states, I determined 

to avail myself of the influence he undoubtedly possesses with President Belzu to 
forward as far as possible our plan of opening the navigation of the Amazon, 
and to prevent, as much as I could, the success of the Brazilian policy of exclu- 
sion. Having ascertained from that Guarayos, a village of four hundred 

inhabitants, situated at the junction of the Marmore with the Itenez, on the 
Bolivian side, and Exal acion, a town of four thousand inhabitants, were the prin- 
cipal places on the Marmore" below the town of Trinidad, I proposed to him to 
write to Belzu, and induce him to declare those places ports of entry for foreign 
commerce. He caught at the idea at once, and said it was ' muy luminosaj and 
wrote to the President by the last post upon the subject. He says that Belzu 
has declared that he will make no concessions to the Brazilleros ; that the Norte 
Americanos are the people for him, as they will bring wealth, force, and civiliza- 
tion to Bolivia. 

" I cannot doubt that the Bolivian government will declare the places mentioned 
above — viz : ' Guarayos' and ' Exaltacion' — ports of entry to foreign commerce. 
In that event, there will be one great point gained. It will show that Bolivia 
wishes to open commercial relations with us ; therefore we can insist that Brazil 
shall not throw any impediment in the way of our trade with that republic. Un- 
fortunately, we, as individuals, have neither the power nor the means of carrying 
out this gigantic, this magnificent plan of opening the finest and most extensive 
region of the globe to popu ation and civilization. We have gone on so far 
unaided by the counsel, or even the countenance, of the general government, 
with the exception of 

"For myself, I feel full of this vast subject ; for I know that within less than 
one hundred leagues of me is the margin of those great solitudes, replete with 
riches, and occupying the wild space where millions of the human race might 
dwell in plenty and happiness, where Nature annually wastes more than would 
support the population of China in comfort, and where the most luscious fruits 
and fairest flowers grow and bloom unknown and unnoticed. When I reflect on 
this, and on the miles of rivers rolling on in silence and neglect, I feel doubly 
the want of power and money to accomplish their introduction to the civilized 
world. 

" To return to the question of internal navigation in South America. Enclosed 
you will find a slip from the 'Commercio' newspaper, published in this city, 
containing an account of the departure of a small expedition from Paucartambo 
to explore the river Madre de Dios. 

" The Cuzcanians are alive to the importance of communicating through their 
rivers to the Amazon and the Atlantic ocean, and whenever the question shall be 
fairly brought before the Peruvian government, and it is ascertained that the 
United States intend to force open the way through the Brazils, I can count upon 
the assistance and influence of the whole department of Cuzco, and probably of 
the whole number of senators and deputies from the eastern provinces of the 
republic. Until some action shall be taken by the government of the United 
States, little can be done here. 



32 

"However, en attendant, it would be well if you were to attempt to organize a 
company for the navigation of the South American rivers generally, becaiise, 
whilst we look at the Amazon, we should not lose sight of the La Plata. The 
country lying upon the head-waters of that river is better populated than that on 
the confluence of the Amazon, and, from all I can learn, the commerce with 
Paraguay alone would amply repay the outlay necessary to establish a steam 
company for the waters of the La Plata. Possibly, if steamers were actually 
plying upon the Paraguay and Parana, the Brazilian government might be better 
disposed towards us, and the question of Amazonian navigation be amicably 
settled. You may rest assured that if the United States do not move shortly in 
the mattert some other nation will. 

"Even the Bolivians themselves are beginning to wake up to the importance 
of opening a communication with the Atlantic. The subject is touched upon in 
the enclosed articles from the 'Commercio,' published in this city. The Bahia 
Negra is not put down on the map I have, nor are Guturriz, the lake Izozos, the 
river Otuquis, nor the Lativegnique ; but it appears to me that a better or more 
direct route to the Paraguay from Chuquisaca (Sucre) would be down the Pilco- 
mayo, which passes within a few leagues of the town. I am not aware whether 
that river is navigable, nor whether the country it flows through is at all produc- 
tive. I presume not, as it traverses the Gran Chaco desert. 

"I think that the energies and influence of all the friends of South American 
internal navigation and colonization should be directed towards forming a com- 
pany with a large capital, and to obtain the aid and support of the Congress of 
the United States. I know how difficult an undertaking it is to wring an appro- 
priation out of our national legislature for any purpose ; but if the subject could 
be fairly brought before it, and some of the leading senators and representatives 
could be excited to take a patriotic interest in it, perhaps something might be 
done. 

"We must, on our side, do all we can, and by dint of perseverance may suc- 
ceed at last in accomplishing our object. Should we do so, it will be a proud 
satisfaction to ourselves, though the public may, and probably will, leave us to 
exclaim: ' Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honor es.' 

" I shall continue working on, and writing to you whenever I have anything of 
the least interest to communicate." 

I think that from this showing I am entitled to say that com- 
merce up and down the Amazon now with Bolivia is not an 
abstraction. 

Just as I am concluding this chapter, I receive a communication 
from South America, stating that in all probability Bolivia will 
make, in the month of December, 1852, Exaltacion, on the 
Madeira, and Reyes, on the Beni — both belonging to the Ama- 
zonian water-shed and to the tributaries of the Madeira — -free 
ports to the commerce of the world ; and that the sum of $10,000 
will be offered as a reward to the first steamer that shall arrive at 
either one of these places. 

The results of Lieutenant Gibbon's exploration of these water- 
courses are, moreover, looked for, it is said, with exceeding inter- 
est by the Bolivians. 



CHAPTER V. 

Caravans over the Mountains vs. Steamboats down the Rivers — Free navigation 
of the Amazon a great question — Lieut. Herndon — Fountain-heads of the 
Amazon and the Mississippi — Lakes Itasca and Morococha, 10,000 miles apart 
— Their waters meet in the Florida Pass — Prices of produce on the Upper 
Amazon — Cotton cloth and wax the currency of the country — A Yankee black- 
smith — A grand monopoly — Gold and hostile Indians — Great sarsaparilla 
country — Course of trade with the Upper Amazon — Ports of entry — Steamboat 
navigation to the Andes — Beautiful description — Mineral wealth— Lieutenant 
Herndon' s report. 

About one-half of Bolivia, two-thirds of Peru, three-fourths of 
Ecuador, and one-half of New Granada are drained by the Ama- 
zon and its tributaries. For the want of steamboat navigation 
on these water-courses, the trade of all these parts of those coun- 
tries goes west by caravans of mules to the Pacific. There, it is 
shipped, and, after doubling Cape Horn and sailing eight or ten 
thousand miles, it is then only off the mouth of the Amazon on 
its way to the United States or Europe ; whereas, if the navigation 
of the Amazon were free to these countries, the steamers on that 
river would land their produce at the mouth of the Amazon for 
what it costs to convey it across the Andes on mules to the 
Pacific. 

A question, therefore, of the greatest importance to these 
republics is the free navigation of that river. The introduction 
of the steamboat upon their tributaries of it would be followed by 
the immigrant up the Amazon, who would soon make a perfect 
garden-spot of the splendid provinces that are on its banks. 

The distance between the sources of the Amazon, in Peru, and 
her Pacific coast is, at the nearest point, not more than sixty or 
seventy miles. 

The province of Caxamarca, which is upon the Amazonian 
water-shed in Peru, has a population of 70,000. It is said to be 
the healthiest part of the world. In 1792 there were eight per- 
sons in it whose respective ages were 114, 117, 121, 131, 132, 
141, and 147 ; and one person died there at the age of 144 years, 
7 months, and 5 days, leaving 800 living descendants.* The 
city of Caxamarca is in 7° south. 

There are upon this water-shed, in Bolivia, the cities of Chu- 
quisaca, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz ; in Peru, the famous city 
of Cuzco, Huancavelica, (celebrated for the richest quicksilver 
mines in the world,) Tarma, Caxamarca, and Moyabamba ; and 

■* Montgomery Martin. 

3 



• 

in Ecuador, the celebrated city of Quito, besides numerous other 
towns, villages, and hamlets in them all. 

The revolution which the discovery of the passage around the 
Cape of Good Hope made in the trade of the East was not 
greater than that which the free navigation of the Amazon would 
make in the trade of these four republics. It would make of 
them new countries and a new people. Total population at present 
estimated between seven and eight millions. 

In May, 1851, Lieut. Herndon set out from Lima, on his way 
to explore the Amazon ; and it is through him that I derive most 
of the following information concerning the Peruvian water-shed 
of that river. 

I therefore introduce the reader upon that water-shed by an 
extract from his journal, which he has kindly permitted me to 
make. Standing in view of three beautiful lakes — one of them, 
Morococha, or "Painted Lake," being that from which the head- 
waters of the Amazon flow — he remarks : 

" Though not yet sixty miles from the sea, we had crossed the great 'divide' 
which separates the waters of the Pacific from the waters of the Atlantic. The 
last steps of our mules had made a striking change in our geographical relations 
— so suddenly and so quickly had we been cut off from all connexion with the 
Pacific, and placed upon waters that rippled and sparkled joyously as they danced 
by our feet on their way to join the glad waves of the dark blue ocean that 
washes the shores of our own dear land. They whispered to me of home, and 
my heart went along with them. I thought of Maury, with his researches con- 
cerning the currents of the sea ; and, recollecting the close physical connexion 
pointed out by him as existing between these the waters of the Amazon and those 
of our own majestio Mississippi, I musingly dropped a bitof green moss plucked 
from the hill-side upon the bosom of the placid Morococha, and as it floated along 
I followed it, in imagination, down through the luxurious climes, the beautiful 
skies, and enchanting scenery of the tropics, to the mouth of the great river 
that this little lake was feeding ; thence across the Caribbean sea, through the 
Yucatan pass into the Gulf of Mexico ; thence along the Gulf stream, and so out 
upon the ocean off the shores of our own 'land of flowers.' Here I fancied it 
might have met with silent little messengers cast by the hands of sympathizing 
friends and countrymen high up on the head- waters of the Mississippi, or away 
in the Far West, upon the distant fountains of the Missouri. 

" It was indeed but a bit of moss that was floating upon the water while I 
mused. But fancy, awakened and stimulated by surrounding circumstances, had 
already converted it into a skiff manned by fairies, and bound upon a mission of 
high import, bearing messages of peace and good will, and telling of commerce 
and navigation, of settlement and civilization, of religious and political liberty, 
from the 'King of Rivers' to the 'Father of Waters,' and possibly meeting in 
the Florida pass, and speaking through a trumpet louder than the tempest, with 
sprites sent down by the naiads of Lake Itasca with greetings to Morococha. 

" I was now for the first time fairly in the field of my operations. 

" I had been sent to explore the valley of the Amazon, to sound its streams, 
and to report as to their navigability. I was commanded to examine its fields, 
its forests, and its rivers, that I might gauge their capabilities, active and dormant, 
for trade and commerce with the states of Christendom, and make known to the 
spirit and enterprise of the age the resources which lie in concealment there, 
waiting for the touch of civilization and the breath of the steam-engine to give 
them animation, life, and palpable existence. 

" Before us lay this immense field, dressed in the robes of everlasting summer, 



and embracing an area of thousands upon thousands of square miles, on which 
the foot-fall of civilized man had never been heard. Behind us towered, in for- 
bidding grandeur, the crests and peaked summits of the Andes, clad in the garb 
of eternal winter. 

" The contrast was striking and the field inviting. But who were the laborers ? 
Gibbon and I. We were all. The rest were not even gleaners. But it was well. 
The expedition had been planned and arranged at home with admirable judgment 
and consummate sagacity ; for had it been on a grand scale, commensurate with 
its importance, or even larger than it was, it would have broken down with its 
own weight. 

" Though the waters where I stood were bound on their way to meet the 
streams of our northern hemisphere, and to bring, for all the practical purposes 
of commerce and navigation, the mouth of the Amazon and the mouth of the 
Mississippi into one, and place it before our own doors; yet from the head of 
navigation On one stream to the head of navigation on the other the distance to 
be sailed could not be less than ten thousand miles. 

" Vast, many, and great, doubtless, are the varieties of climates, soils, and 
productions within such a range. The importance to the world of settlement, 
cultivation, and commerce in the valley of the Amazon cannot be over-estimated. 
With the climates of India, and of all the habitable portions of the earth, piled 
■one above the other in quick succession, tillage and good husbandry here would 
transfer the productions of the East to this magnificent river-basin, and place 
them within a few days' easy sail of Europe and the United States. 

"Only a few miles back we had first entered the famous mining districts of 
Peru. A large portion of the silver which constitutes the circulation of the 
world was dug from the range of mountains upon wbich we were standing, and 
most of it came from that slope of them which is drained off into the Amazon. 
Is it possible for commerce and navigation up and down this majestic water-course 
and its beautiful tributaries to turn back this stream of silver from its western 
course to the Pacific, and conduct it, with steamers, down the Amazon, to the 
United States, there to balance the stream of gold with which we are likely to 
be flooded from California and Australia ? 

" Questions which I could not answer, and reflections which I could not keep 
back, crowded upon me. Oppressed with their weight and the magnitude of the 
task before me, I turned slowly and sadly away, secretly lamenting my own want 
of ability for this great undertaking, and sincerely regretting that the duty 
before me had not been assigned to abler and better hands." 

The Amazon, in Peru, is called the Maranon. It takes its 
rise in about 11 deg. south, and flows jjL N. W. for about five 
hundred miles ; thence turning east, and constituting, according 
to the maps, (but the maps are wrong,) the boundary line between 
Peru and Ecuador for about eight hundred miles by its windings. 
Crossing in Peru the head-waters of the main stream, Lieut. 
Herndon reached the banks of the Huallaga, a noble tributary, 
and embarked upon it at Tinga-Maria. He descended it to its 
unction with the main stream, and thence to the mouth of the 
latter by a river navigation of not less than three thousand 
five hundred miles. 

At Tarapoto he fell in with a clever New England blacksmith, 
who had been in that country for many years, and from whose 
valuable notes concerning the commercial resources of the places 
visited by him I derive the following : 

Tarapoto, situated on the left bank of the Huallaga, six leagues 
above Ghasuta, the head of uninterrupted navigation from the 



36 

sea, is one hundred and thirty leagues from the city of Huanuco, 
and twenty-four from Moyabamba. Climate very healthy, and 
free from all annoying insects. 

It is situated on a beautiful plain of from twenty to twenty- 
five leagues in circumference, which is intersected by many rivu- 
lets. The soil is fertile, producing in great abundance cotton, 
coffee, sugar, indigo, and cocoa, as well as everything else to 
which the climate is adapted. Here the plantain continues, without 
any other care than that required to remove the noxious weeds, 
to produce in full vigor from fifty to sixty years. Cotton gives 
a crop in six months from the seed ; rice in five months ; and 
indigo grows wild. Neat cattle and sheep thrive here and multi- 
ply most rapidly. Population of the town and its two ports in 
1848, 5,350: annual births about 235 ; deaths, 40. Principal 
branch of industry, cotton cloth, of which they manufacture 
between thirty-five and forty thousand yards. It is made by 
hand, and one yard of our common coarse cotton is worth there 
two of that. 

The currency is white wax and this coarse cotton stuff of the 
country, which in Chachapoyas is worth twelve cents the yard. 

One pound of white wax is worth four yards of cotton ; a good- 
sized bull, one hundred yards ; a well-grown fat hog, sixty yards ; 
a big sheep, twelve yards ; twenty-five pounds of coffee, six yards ; 
twenty-five pounds of rum, twelve yards ; a laying hen, four 
ounces of wax ; a chicken, two ounces ; twenty-five pounds of 
rice in the husk, a half pound of wax ; twenty-five pounds of 
corn, two ounces; twenty-five pounds beans, four ounces; a basket 
of yucas, weighing from fifty to sixty pounds, two ounces ; twenty- 
five pounds seed cotton, eight ounces ; a bunch of plantains, 
weighing from forty to fifty pounds, three needles. Storax, cin- 
namon, milk of trees, gums, and other products of the forests 
have no fixed value; but thsy may be had in quantity from the 
Indians at merely nominal prices. 

The land transportation from Tarapoto to Moyabamba, with 
its population of 15,000, is done on the backs of Indians. Sev- 
enty-five pounds make a load, and the freight is six yards of 
cotton, valued at three yards of our common "fi'penny bit" stuff. 

The pay of a common laborer is four ounces of wax per day 
and found, "with chicha at discretion." 

This is the most important town in the province of Mainas, on 
account of its proximity to navigable waters and its connexion 
with such a large extent of territory that is not liable to overflow. 

From Tarapoto to Chasuta you pass the villages of Juan Gu- 
erra and Shapaya. Chasuta is at the head of uninterrupted nav- 
igation on the Huallaga. Lieut. Herndon, coming down at low 
wter, mot between this place and the mouth of the Amazon with 



87 

nowhere less than five feet of water. The high-water mark is 
forty feet above the stage in which the river was when he was 
there. From Chasuta to the mouth of the Amazon the distance 
by water is upwards of 3,000 miles ; and for half the year the 
Pennsylvania, seventy-four, would find water enough to reach 
that village from the sea. 

Population of Chasuta 1,031; distance to Tarapoto by land six 
leagues ; cost of transportation, one pound of wax the Indian 
load, one pound of wax being equivalent to four yards of cotton. 
Cows, sheep, horses, and hogs thrive well. Productions those of 
Tarapoto. 

Yunimaguas, twenty-four leagues below Chasuta ; population 
319 ; country fertile, A good road can be cut from this place 
almost in a straight line to Moyabamba, distance thirty leagues. 

Santa Cruz is thirty-five leagues below Chasuta. Here white 
wax is worth one and a third yards cotton, and five pounds wax 
are sold for one white-handled knife. Population 300. 

Chamicuros, thirty-nine leagues below Chasuta, with a popula- 
tion of 331. Valuable resins and gums abound in the woods. 

Laguna, forty-four leagues below Chasuta, and four above the 
mouth of the Huallaga, has a population of 742, and a fertile 
soil. 

Urarinas, on the Amazon, five leagues below the mouth of the 
Huallaga — population forty-three. This is an important place 
on account of the immense quantities in its vicinity of the tree 
which produces the gum-copal. 

Passing by the villages of Paranari and San Kegis, we come to 
Nauta, the capital of the district. It is situated on the right 
bank of the Amazon, forty-six leagues below the mouth of the 
Huallaga, and ninety -four below the head of uninterrupted nav- 
igation on that river. 

It is to this place that Brazil, by treaty with Peru, has just 
contracted for a line of steamers, under the Brazilian flag, from 
Para, at the mouth of the Amazon. This line is to have a mo- 
nopoly of steamboat navigation on the Amazon for thirty years, 
with a bonus of $100,000 per annum for the first fifteen. 

It therefore becomes a place of importance ; and as I shall 
have occasion to allude to it again in connexion with this steam- 
boat line, under the Brazilian flag, I will here take no more 
notice of it. 

Nauta is also only half a league above the mouth of the 
Ucayali, another tributary of the Amazon, and larger than the 
Huallaga — population 810. 

Here one yard of English or American cotton is worth 
two and two-thirds yards of the cotton cloth of the country; 
and thirty-four pounds of sarsaparilla are given for eight yards 



of the latter ; a full-grown hen is worth six needles ; a chicken 
three ; and fifty or sixty pounds of yucas six. A Portuguese 
merchant has established a house here. 

Amaguas, seven miles below Nauta, is an important point, 
(though at present it has but 240 inhabitants,) on account of its 
great extent of fertile lands. 

Passing Amaguas with its 240 inhabitants, Iquitos with its 127, 
and Arau with its eighty, we arrive, twenty-seven leagues below 
the mouth of the Ucayali which comes from the south, at the 
mouth of the Rio Napo, a tributary from Ecuador. There is 
here a settlement consisting of one family of Mitos Indians and 
one fugitive slave from Brazil — total thirty-one. 

This river is 200 yards broad at its mouth, and is navigable for 
300 miles. It is rich in gold ; its banks are inhabited by hostile 
tribes of Indians, and covered with sarsaparilla and other valua- 
ble products of the forests. These Indians make the finest and 
most beautiful hammocks that are found in the Pampa del Sac- 
ramento ; price of a hammock two yards of cotton. The trade 
in poisons makes this an important place. 

Pebas is thirteen leagues below the mouth of the Napo ; has a 
population of 387, and a fine country round about. Its produc- 
tions are white and black wax, sarsaparilla, vanilla, poisons, 
storax, "chambira," hammocks, pitch, copal, incense, India rub- 
ber, milk of the cow tree, and many curiosities, which the Indians, 
who, though wild and savage, are friendly to the white man, 
usually bring in exchange for beads, trinkets, &c. 

White wax is worth two yards of cotton ; black, one and a 
half ; thirty-four pounds sarsaparilla, twenty-four yards ; ham- 
mock, two yards ; a little pot of poison, four yards ; one pound 
vanilla, eight yards. 

Thence to Loreto, the frontier town of Peru, we have five 
small villages. Loreto is 160 leagues below the head of uninter- 
rupted navigation of the Huallaga: population, 122. In this 
village you find a preparation from the wild yuca, which is very 
palatable, wholesome, and nutricious. It is a good substitute for 
bread. 

Sarayacu, situated on the right bank of the Ucayali, 300 miles 
above its junction with the Amazon, has a population of l,"-70. 

This is an important point, in the midst of a fertile region. 
Eight or ten miles above this town the Ucayali receives the 
Ahuaytia, which takes its rise almost on the banks of the Hual- 
laga. A few miles up this tributary bring you to a great sarsa- 
parilla country. This drug costs here eight yards of the cotton 
cloth of the country the 100 pounds ; which 100 pounds are worth 
$25 in Para, and from $40 to $60 in Europe, according to 
the markets. These eight yards of cotton for the 100 pounds 



of sarsaparilla, according to the statement of this clever black- 
smith, are worth four yards only of our coarse cotton. 

Let us therefore, for the sake of illustration, trace this trade 
through its entire course. 

The American or English peddler to the Amazon — for trader 
he is not — buys in New York or Liverpool, as the case may be, 
four yards of cotton, for which he pays twenty-five cents. He 
ships it thence around Cape Horn to Callao. Here it pays duty 
at the Peruvian custom-house, and is sent thence to Lima by mule. 
By this time, what, with freight, transportation, and commissions, 
it has cost the purchaser fifty cents. It is then packed on mules, 
carried across the Andes, and in about twelve months from the 
time of its leaving New York or Liverpool it arrives at the mouth 
of the Ucayali, where it is sent up by boat, which occupies three 
hundred working hours in going up three hundred miles to Sara- 
yacu and the sarsaparilla country. Here this piece of four yards 
is exchanged in barter, according to Hacket, the New England 
mechanic, from whom I have been quoting, for 100 pounds of 
that drug. A shipment of the return cargo is then made in the 
rude river raft of the country, and this 100 pounds of sarsapa- 
rilla, bought with four yards of "fi'-penny-bit" cotton, when it 
reaches the Amazon is worth $9 in Nauta, $10.50 in Tabatinga, 
$25 at Para, and $50 at New York or Liverpool. The voyage 
has been a long and a tedious and a round-about one, but the 
profits are enormous. 

Now, if Peru and Brazil, instead of forcing commerce with 
their interior provinces to go around "Robin Hood's barn" to get 
there, would open ports of entry to all nations and permit them 
to use the navigation of the Amazon, the citizens and subjects of 
Peru and Brazil, instead of getting four yards of cotton for their 
one hundred pounds of sarsaparilla, would get three or four hun- 
dred yards for it. 

It would be difficult to quote any example more strikingly illus- 
trative of the advantages to Peru of that "policy of commerce" 
which calls for the establishment of ports of entry at the head 
of navigation on the Maranon, as the main trunk of the Amazon 
is here called ; at Chasuta, the head of navigation on the Hual- 
laga ; at the head of navigation on the Ucayali ; and at Nauta, 
which is at the junction of this last with the Amazon. 

So Ecuador might establish ports of entry on her side of the 
Amazon, at Borja, if the navigation be uninterrupted that far, 
and if Borja belong to her ; and at the head of navigation at 
each one of her Amazonian tributaries, as the Pastaza, the Napo, 
the Putomayo, and the Japura ; though the head of navigation of 
the last is perhaps in New Grenada. 



40 

Now, if one of these republics should declare such places free 
ports to all the world, or ports of entry to the commerce of all 
nations at peace with her, surely Brazil would not in this enlight- 
ened day, if an American or an Englishman should wish to wear 
his own flag and go up in his own bottom under it on a trading 
voyage to those ports — surely, I say, Brazil would not at this 
day attempt to play the part of Japan, and hinder those vessels 
from passing by her doors to other parts of the world. 

The Pastaza, I am informed on the authority of my old friend, 
General Villamil, the Secretary of State of Ecuador, is naviga- 
ble nearly up to Quito ; and, it is well known that the sands of 
most of those streams are auriferous. 

Tabatinga is the frontier post of Brazil on the Amazon. 
Thence ascending, we have an uninterrupted navigation along 
the main trunk of the Amazon, which here courses through the 
northern parts of Peru, and not far from the southern boundary 
of Ecuador, for the distance of five or six hundred miles. Thus 
a steamboat may reach the foot of the Andes. 

Lieut. Herndon entered the Amazon four hundred and sixty 
miles above the Brazilian boundary, and he thus describes the 
river there : 

"The Amazon, where it receives the Huallaga, is five hundred yards broad. 
The march of this great river in its silent grandeur was sublime ; but in the un- 
tamed might of its turbid waters, as they cut away its banks, tore down the 
gigantic denizens of the forests and built up island's, it was awful. It rolled 
through the wilderness with a stately and solemn air ; its waters looked angry, 
sullen, and relentless, and the whole scene, as the noise of the falling trees came 
booming at distant intervals across the forest, awoke emotions of awe and dread, 
such as are caused by the funeral solemnities, the minute gun, the howl of the 
wind, and the angry tossings of the waves, when all hands are called 'to bury 
the dead' in a troubled sea. 

" Though the river was not at its full, it reminded me of our Mississippi at its 
topmost floods. The waters are quite as muddy and quite as trubid, but the 
Amazon lacked the charm and the fascination which the plantation upon the bank, 
the city upon the bluff, and the steamboat upon the water lend to its fellow of 
the North ; nevertheless, I felt pleasure at its sight. I had already travelled 
seven hundred miles by water, and fancied that this powerful stream would soon 
carry me to the ocean. But the water travel was comparatively just begun ; many 
a weary month was to elapse ere I should again look upon the familiar face of 
the sea, and many a time, when worn awearied with the canoe life, did I exclaim, 
' this river seems interminable.' 

" Its capacities for trade and commerce are inconceivably great. Its industrial 
future is the most dazzling ; and to the touch of steam, settlement, and culti- 
vation, this rolling. stream and its magnificent water-shed would start up into a 
display of industrial results that would make the valley of the Amazon one of the 
most enchanting regions on the face of the earth. 

" From its mountains you may dig silver, iron, coal, copper, quicksilver, zinc, 
and tin ; from the sands of its tributaries you may wash gold, diamonds, and 
precious stones ; from its forests you may gather drugs of virtues the most rare, 
spices of aroma the most exquisite, gums and resins of the most useful proper- 
ties, dyes of hues the most brilliant, with cabinet and building woods of the 
finest polish and most enduring texture. Its climate is an everlasting summer, 
and its harvest perennial." 



41 

With this enchanting picture, and the hope that Lieut. Hern- 
don will soon let us have in full the report* of his wonderful voy- 
age down the Amazon, I close this the antepenultimate of my 
numbers. 

INCA. 



* Note. — We understand that this interesting document has been sent in, and 
that the Senate has ordered 10,000 extra copies. Editor. 

February 25, 1853. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Tributaries of the Amazon ; their navigability — Exploration of the Amazon by 
American man-of-war steamer — The Tocantins — Goyaz — Salt works — Lake of 
Pearls — Dye-stuffs — Sugar-cane — Collecting gold — Productions ; their prices — 
Exports — Poling up the river — Designs of Brazil — Value of commerce with the 
Amazon — Reciprocity — Laws of Nature — Conditions wanting in Brazil which 
make a seafaring people — A contrast — Extent of back country tributary to the 
Atlantic ocean greater than that to the Pacific — Our Atlantic ports half-way 
houses — Free navigation of the Amazon ; how to get it. 

The Amazon -enters the Atlantic through a delta. The prin- 
cipal tributaries from the south which fall into this river are. 
commencing at its mouth and going up, the Tocantins, the Chingu, 
the Tapajos, the Madeira, the Purus, the Tappe, the Hyuruba, 
the Hiutay, the Tavary, the Ucayali, and the Huallaga — none of 
them smaller than the Ohio, and some larger than the Missouri. 

From the north come the Rio Negro and the Japura, (two 
mighty streams,) the Putomayo, the Napo, the Tigre'-Yacu, and 
the Pastaza. 

I have spoken of the present commercial resources of the 
Madeira and the Huallaga from information derived from Lieu- 
tenants Herndon and Gibbon, United States navy, and from M. 
Castelnau. As to the present condition of the trade and resources 
of these other rivers, except the Tocantins, we are left very much 
in the dark or to conjecture. 

All of them, we know, have falls and rapids of niore or less 
velocity, which offer obstructions more or less difficult to steam- 
boat navigation. Therefore, as to the question of how far these 
rivers may be ascended by steamboats at low water, and how far 
at high, that must be left for actual trial to decide. I hope, 
therefore, the time is not distant when an American steamer or 
two will be sent to make a complete and thorough examination 
as to this point, and to explore that rich and interesting region of 
country, with a view to its commercial resources, both present 
and prospective. 

In the present state of our information, we can judge of the 
actual resources of these several streams for trade and traffic by 
comparing those as to which we are in the dark with those which 
have been recently explored. As the type of the whole in this 
respect, therefore, I take the Tocantins. 

As you enter the southern mouth of the Amazon, the mouth of 
the Tocantins is the first but one that you pass. It traverses 
more parallels of latitude than our Mississippi does. But it is a 



43 

straighter, and therefore not so long a river. It takes its rise in 
the provinces of Matto Grosso and Goyaz, and drains these two 
provinces with that of Para. This river lies wholly within Bra- 
zilian territory, and was explored down to port Barra by Castelnau 
in 1843-4. From him, therefore, I derive my special information 
with regard to it. 

It drains a gold and diamond country, which is also an exceed- 
ingly rich agricultural one. Its principal tributary is the Ara- 
guay ; and it is a most noble stream. Speaking of parts of the 
valley of the Tocantins in which he was, Castelnau says: "I 
believe that this rich and valuable country will be found one of 
the most healthy in the world." 

The city of Goyaz, with a population of seven or eight thousand, 
and the capital of its province, is situated on the Vermilho, cele- 
brated for its golden sands. This river is about twenty steps wide 
opposite the city, and vessels from Para come up and make fast 
to the bridge below. The distance thence in a straight line to 
the mouth of the Amazon is rather under than over a thousand 
miles. The population of the whole province, more than two- 
thirds of which is in the valley of the Tocantins, is 125,000, of 
whicli 25,000 are slaves. 

There is a number of flourishing towns and villages on the 
water-shed of this river. Among these is Salinas, which derives 
its name from its salt-works. 

Near by the salt lake of Salinas is the Lake of Pearls, sur- 
rounded by a beautiful vegetation, and numerously inhabited by 
acquatic birds. Nothing, says Castelnau, can give one " une idSe 
de la beaute de cette jolie piece d'eau." Its waters are fresh, and 
it abounds with a shellfish which contains the pearl. 

It was here that the voyageurs found such a variety of rare 
and useful plants ; among them, one, the fruit of which is used to 
make ink, and it is an excellent substitute for nut-galls ; another 
was a kind of cane, the roots of which make a yellow die of the 
most exquisite hue. They obtained, wild from the forest, all the 
colors with which they painted the Brazilian flag that was hoisted 
during the descent of the Araguay, the principal tributary of the 
Tocantins, and far more beautiful than our belle riviere of the 
West. 

They use for tanning the bark of a tree, with which the raw 
hide is converted into leather in a month. They have two varie- 
ties of manioc, of great beauty, which require little or no labor 
in cultivation. It is propagated by cuttings or slips ; so also is 
the sugar-cane, which sends up from every joint a dozen stalks, 
and gives a crop in every eight months. The black bean, an 
essential article of food with the Brazilians, grows here in great 
perfection \ it yields four crops a year. Two kinds of beautiful 



44 

palms grow wild in the woods, which also furnish the natives with 
an abundant supply of wholesome food. 

There have been in this province as many as one hundred 
thousand slaves employed at one time in collecting gold alone. 

But, as rich in mines as this province is, its soil with its pro- 
ductions is much richer. It is well adapted to the cultivation of 
cotton and coffee, sugar and tobacco, of Indian corn, rye, wheat, 
and oats ; of rice, indigo, pulse, and potatoes ; manioc, nuts, 
ipecacuanha, sarsaparilla, vanilla, anatto, balsam, India rubber, 
and a great variety of gums, spices, ornamental woods, roots, 
drugs, and dye-stuffs. 

The margins of the rivers afford pasturage and support to 
numerous herds of cattle and horses. Their waters abound in 
fish. Castelnau saw dolphins sporting in them. 

Limestone and salt-petre caves, with salt lakes, add beauty to 
the country and variety to its resources ; also, iron mines abound. 

The mode of cultivation is rude and ruinous. The planters 
scratch the earth with a pick, sow, and at the end of a few months, 
says Castelnau, reap one or two hundred fold, more or less, 
according to the fertility of the soil and the excellence of the 
season. 

The ordinary prices are : for coffee, 3|- cents the pound ; seed 
cotton, 1 cent the pound ; white sugar, 3 cents ; tobacco, 4 cents ; 
beef cattle, $2 to $3 the head ; tanned hides, 65 cents apiece ; 
green ditto, 20 cents. 

The exports consist of these, besides calf, kid, otter, and ounce 
skins, with other products of the field, the forest, the river, and 
the mine. 

The imports are fabrics of silk, wool, flax, and cotton, hats, salt, 
drugs, medicines, crockery, wine, brandies, farming implements, &c. 

The voyage up the river from Para occupies about five months. 
The upward freight is four dollars the one hundred pounds ; the 
downward, one dollar ; and the first steamer has yet to be seen 
upon this majestic stream. 

Here, then, is a river which enters the Amazon so near the 
sea that the water at its mouth is salt, and Brazil has not had the 
energy to put the first steamboat upon it. How then is it possible 
for her to travel three thousand miles up the mighty Amazon, 
and introduce the steamer upon the waters of Peru, as she has 
endeavored to persuade the Government of Peru that she can ? 

The crew of one of those rude vessels that go poling up the 
Tocantins as far as Porto Imperial, consists of from twenty to 
thirty men. They take down, among other things, hides, which 
at Goyaz are worth fifty cents, and at Para sell for one dollar and 
fifty cents ; and so of other things. 

The banks of this river are said to be inhabited in some parts 



46 

by hostile Indians ; and this, it is said, is one of the causes of its 
rude navigation. But the steamboat would certainly not have 
more to fear from Indians than these unwieldy hulks of Brazil, 
as they go creeping along the coward shores. 

There is a dozen other rivers emptying into the Amazon that 
drain water-sheds, which are no doubt as rich and as fertile as 
this. 

We are entitled to infer, not only by reference to the Tocantins 
as a type of them, but by reference to the quantity of produce 
that goes to sea from the Amazon, that the valleys of its other 
tributaries are not behind that of the Tocantins. Produce enough 
comes down the Amazon to Para to give that city an annual trade, 
to and fro, of three millions of dollars ! 

Bolivia sent last year from her part of this great water-shed 
two million dollars' worth of Peruvian bark alone. But that 
went over the mountains to the Pacific. The steamboat would 
have brought it down the Amazon to the Atlantic. It would 
have brought business to Para, and added greatly to the wealth 
of Brazil and the prosperity of her people. 

It certainly would be wisdom in Brazil were she to make not 
only the navigation of the Amazon free to all the world, but it 
would be politic in her to throw open to foreign commerce and 
navigation the Tocantins also, and all her other Amazonian tribu- 
taries. 

The value of the trade up and down the Tocantins would be 
increased manyfold ; the hostile Indians, which infest its banks 
and prevent their settlement, would be driven away ; and lands 
that are now profitless, and produce that is valueless, would 
become profitable. 

"We admit the coffee of Brazil into our ports duty free. We 
are her best customer and friend, and it is quite time that Brazil 
had signalized her appreciation of this patronage and friendship 
by some sign or token at least that she too would be liberal in 
her policy. 

Since the subjects of Brazil themselves have not judged it 
expedient to put a steamer on the Tocantins to go up after all 
this coffee, and rice, and sugar, and tobacco, &c, it certainly 
would be wise in her to permit citizens of the United States, or 
of France, or of England, to do it. They would gladly go up 
this river after this fine Goyaz coffee. Her subjects then would 
receive double the price they now receive for it, and the rest of 
their produce. Those of them who are employed in transporting 
this merchandise to the sea-board by water and by land would 
then find more profitable employment in the cultivation of the 
soil. Double the price of the staples of a country, and you not 
only double the price of labor, but you greatly enhance the 



46 

national wealth. Increase the substance of the subject, and you 
increase his power to pay taxes ; and this, I imagine, is what 
Brazil wants. 

But this river Tocantins lies wholly within Brazilian territory ; 
she has the right to open it to the commerce of the world or not, 
as she pleases ; and her action with regard to it is no just 
cause of complaint or offence to any nation. 

Not so, however, when she keeps closed the Amazon, and 
endeavors, because she holds the mouth of that river, to shut it 
up, and to cut off those five Spanish-American republics which 
own navigable tributaries to it, from commerce with the world, 
and all the world from commerce with them. 

There are physical agencies at work upon the great Atlantic 
slopes of South America which will for ages prevent its inhab- 
itants from becoming a seafaring people. The laws of Nature 
have ordained that the people who dwell upon those slopes shall 
be tillers of the earth or keepers of flocks and herds. That wise 
Law-giver never intended that men should forsake a land of milk 
and honey for the mariner's calling, where, after toil, hardship, 
danger, and exposure, he can only gain the means of a frugal 
subsistence from the sea. 

Bread grows on trees in Brazil ; honey is found in the woods ; 
and there is a tree there, too, which, being tapped, yields abund- 
antly a rich juice which the people use instead of milk. Nature 
has never yet put it into the heart of man to forsake such a land 
and take to the sea. 

The sea-front of these beautiful slopes proclaims this same law 
of Nature. It is written in the fields, whispered in the breeze, 
and felt in the climate. 

The sea has no spell by which the enchantments of soft cli- 
mates, fertile soils, cheap lands, and a healthy country can be 
broken. It is necessity — and that, too, a necessity that is right 
stern — which induces a man to forsake the land and take to the 
sea for a living. 

Among the conditions requisite to make the people of any 
country a sea-faring people are peculiarities of soil and climate 
which make it easier for the workingman to earn his bread at sea 
than it is on the land. These peculiarities do not exist in Brazil, 
and Brazil has no seamen. Only look whence the sailors come 
that now do the fetching and carrying across the seas. They 
come from the severe climates of the extra-tropical regions of 
the north, and not from the sunny climes of the south. They 
come from Old and New England, the north of Europe and 
of America. Who ever heard of our western people who live in 
the Mississippi valley sending out their sons before the mast to 
make sailors of ? 



it 

It is too easy there to earn a living out of the soil. Much 
easier is it in the valley of the Amazon, where the plantain and 
the banana, the most nutritious of food, grow and ripen, and are 
prepared for the table, without even the care of the laborer to 
dress the plant or the viand — where rice grows wild, the sugar- 
cane ripens every eight months, and where food enough to sup- 
port a population of millions is annually wasted for the want of 
laborers to gather it. How can the people of such a country 
ever become a seafaring people ? What, short of the messengers 
of God's wrath, the famine, and the pestilence, could drive a 
people from such a land, or induce them to forsake it and follow 
the sea ? 

Another condition necessary to the establishment of seafaring 
communities is the presence of the sea. 

Contrast the rock-bound coast of South America — its stiff out- 
lines, its want of articulation — the rigid, forbidding sea-front of 
its Atlantic slopes, with the waving sea-shores, their magnificent 
gulfs, their beautiful bays and harbors, with their capes, promon- 
tories, and peninsulas, of the northern maritime regions of the 
earth, and see how forcibly Nature has proclaimed the fact that 
the soil and the climate of Brazil forbid her people to follow the 
sea. When the dry land first appeared it was ordained that a 
Power of maritime habits was never to dwell where Brazil is. 

Look at the Baltic sea, the Mediterranean and the Black, which, 
with their arms and gulfs, stretch up into the heart of Europe, 
and by their presence invite the people to leave those over-popu- 
lated districts and inhospitable climes to roam over the sea, and 
visit the sunny spots of the earth. 

Again, look in like manner in the northern hemisphere — at the 
Red Sea ; the Persian Gulf ; jutting out Hindostan, tipped with 
the pendant isle of Ceylon ; the bay of Bengal ; the Straits of 
Malacca ; the gulfs of Siam and Tonquin ; the Yellow Sea, with 
the seas of Japan and Oktask, winding along the shores, insinua- 
ting themselves among the people far back in the country, and 
with a coast-line wonderfully indented, inviting them out to sea — 
consider this, and then contrast this shore-line of the North with 
the shore-lines of South America, South Africa, and New Hol- 
land. There is no articulation there, and Nature never intended 
either of these three continents as the home of a maritime and 
seafaring people. 

The same contrast holds between the bays, gulfs, bights, and 
peninsulas of North America, when you come to compare them 
with the straight lines which in South America divide the dry 
land from the sea. Nature, therefore, is against Brazil with her 
longings for maritime consequence. She must be content to let 
other nations fetch and carry for her. She can never have the 



48 

shipping nor the men to carry her own produce to market. They 
have something better to do. 

All of Europe, some of Asia, half of Africa, most of North 
America, and nine of the ten parts of South America are drained 
into the Atlantic. The three largest rivers in the world empty 
into it, and the largest river basins are tributary to it. 

It is but as a narrow canal which separates Europe and Africa 
from the New World, and the amount of back country which 
through river basins and Atlantic slopes is tributary to this 
oceanic canal must forever send down to it an immense amount 
of produce and merchandise. The Atlantic ocean is therefore 
destined to be forever the great scene of this world's business and 
of commerce. And the principal feature in this arrangement of 
land and water, and distribution of river-basin and sea-highways, 
is the valley of the Amazon. 

The winds and currents of the sea are so ordered that, wherever 
the market place may be, every sailing vessel, as she passes to 
and fro between it and the mouth of the Amazon, must, either in 
coming or in going, pass by our doors. 

The Atlantic seaports of the United States are the half-way 
stations between the mouth of the Amazon and all the markets 
of the earth. The trade winds and the great equatorial current 
of the Atlantic have placed the commercial mouth of the Amazon 
in the Florida pass, where they have placed that of the Missis- 
sippi. These two magnificent rivers unite at our feet, and pour 
their wealth along our shores. 

For these and other reasons of import, the free navigation of 
the Amazon, and the settlement of its valley, become matters of 
deep interest to the world, and of especial interest to this country. 
Therefore it is incumbent upon this country to take the initiative 
in opening the trade and navigation of that river to the world. 
The policy of commerce requires it, and the necessities of Chris- 
tendom demand it. 

INCA. 



40 



CHAPTER VII. 

How the commerce and navigation of the Amazon are to be developed — English 
and French steamers to Rio — An American line to the Amazon — Two lines of 
steamers on the Amazon — A new era — Brazil opening the Rio de la Plata to 
free navigation — The same princip'es require her to throw open the Amazon — 
The navigation of the Mississippi before the acquisition of Louisiana likened 
to the navigation of the Amazon— Brazil gets wind of the move in the United 
States for opening both the La Plata and the Amazon to the free navigation 
of the world — Sets to work to thwart this move — Brazilian intrigue, secret 
treaty — Souza's contract for the steamboat navigation of the Amazon an odious 
monopoly — How Brazil has entrapped Peru — The privileges of the most 
favored nations granted to American vessels and citizens in all ports and places 
of Peru — Clay's treaty — Our right to trade up the Amazon — Astonishing yield 
of gold — The question of the day — Brazil has committed herself to the free 
navigation of the Amazon — A case well put — Brazil and the Amazon com- 
pared to Japan — Danger of forfeiture by non-user. 

We come now to consider the means and modes by which the 
resources of this great Amazonian water-shed are to be devel- 
oped, and the measures and steps which the policy of commerce 
suggests for securing to the world the free navigation of the 
Amazon. 

The triumphs of commerce are peaceful ; its achievements are 
seen in the spreading of civilization, in the march of civil 
and religious freedom, and in the dispensation of thrift, prosper- 
ity, and wealth among nations, as well as to individuals. 

From the statements which I have already made, all must admit 
that the valley of the Amazon is not only a great country, but 
it is a glorious wilderness and waste, which, under the improve- 
ment and progress of the age, would soon be made to " blossom 
as the rose." We have, therefore, but to let loose upon it the 
engines of commerce — the steamer, the emigrant, the printing 
press, the axe, and the plough — and it will teem with life. 

There is a line of steamers from England to Rio. The French 
are getting up a line, and the stock has been taken in it, from 
Marseilles to Rio. Brazil has a line from the mouth of the Rio 
de la Plata, via Rio, to the mouth of the Amazon. The mouth of 
the Amazon is half way between Norfolk and Rio. I petitioned 
Congress, at its last session, for the establishment of a line of 
mail steamers from some one of our southern ports to connect with 
the Brazilian line at Para, and thus put our merchants in direct 
steamship communication with Rio, Buenos Ayres, and Monte- 
video, and so draw us closer to the Amazon. 



50 

The committee to whom the subject was referred reported in 
favor of it, and brought in a bill for its accomplishment. It was, 
however not acted upon. 

But since that, events have occurred which make this line from 
the South still more important and necessary. The tyrant Rosas 
has been expelled from the continent ; the navigation of the Rio 
de la Plata and some of the noblest of its tributaries have been 
opened and are about to be made free to the world. Our govern- 
ment, with a most praiseworthy zeal, is fitting out a naval expedi- 
tion to explore those streams, and to make known their naviga- 
bility and the commercial resources of the countries drained by 
them, that our merchants may know how to send, what to sell, 
and what to buy there. 

Brazil has contracted for two lines of steamers on the Amazon, 
from its mouth almost up to its sources. These Amazonian lines 
are to run — one monthly between Para and Barra, at the mouth 
of the Rio Negro, a distance of 900 miles ; the other, connecting 
with this at Barra, is to ply between that city and Nauta, in Peru, 
a distance of near 3,000 miles from the sea. " Poling up the 
Mississippi" would, in comparison to the means at present em- 
ployed for navigating the waters of the Amazon and La Plata, 
be considered rapid traveling. Here, therefore, is the com- 
mencement of a new era in the busines and commerce of those 
two river-basins ; and the first merchant steamer, as she ploughs 
up those majestic streams with her rich cargo of foreign merchan- 
dise, will be the signal for a complete revolution in the present 
trade and traffic there. 

One million and a half of dollars' worth of produce now comes 
down the Amazon to Para, and two millions annually scale the 
Andes from this river-basin to get to the Pacific, and so reach the 
Atlantic via Cape Horn. 

"The Peruvian portion of the Upper Amazon," where this line 
of steamers is to go, "is," said Castelnau, who was then on his 
way home after having traveled through the fairest parts of 
South America — "the Peruvian portion of the Amazon is the 
most beautiful country in the world; its fertility is proverbial." 

There, is found the famous silk tree, which produces a staple 
like cotton to the eye, but silk to the touch. There, the labor of 
one man is worth but two and a half yards of our coarse cotton 
stuff, the month — so abundant are the fruits of the earth, so 
scarce the fabrics of the shop and loom, and so far has that 
country been removed from the influences of commerce. It is 
now just about to be brought within them. 

But what are the opportunities which Americans will have for 
getting a fair share of this new business to which the free navi- 
gation of the La Plata and the introduction of steam upon the 



51 

Amazon will give rise ? I reply, very small, unless this southern 
line of steamers to the Amazon be established ; otherwise all the 
intelligence from Brazil and the La Plata, all the advices con- 
cerning the markets of those countries, will go direct to England 
and to France by their steamers ; and then, after the merchants 
there shall have had some ten days or two weeks the start of 
their American competitors in taking advantage of that intelli- 
gence, it will arrive here in the United States by the Cunard or 
Collins' line of steamers from Liverpool. 

Now and then an American clipper, happening at the mouth of 
the river, or in the offing at Rio, at the right time, may chance 
to bring intelligence to the United States sooner than it can go to 
Europe and then come over by steamer. But that is uncertain. 

The free navigation of the Bio de la Plata is an achievement, 
and commerce is chiefly indebted to Brazil for it. Honor to 
Brazil, therefore. It is a gem in the crown of the Emperor, 
which, if it be tarnished not, will make his reign illustrious. 

Bosas held the mouth of the river La Plata ; Brazil, Banda 
Oriental, Paraguay, and Bolivia (all independent sovereignties) 
owned navigable water-courses which emptied into it ; but Rosas 
would not allow any of these powers to follow those waters 
through his part of the river to the sea. Brazil made war with 
him, drove him out of the country, and the first fruits of the 
victory the commercial world is about to receive is the free navi- 
gation of those noble streams. 

With a quarrel more just than that wicked one about opium, 
Brazil, in her triumph, followed the generous example of England 
in opening the ports of China, without any claim to exclusive 
privileges. 

Brazil has not opened the ports of so populous a country as 
China, but she has opened the water-courses of one with which 
commerce will in a few years be more valuable than it is with 
China. 

These arrangements about the La Plata navigation are not 
completed. They are thought to be in a fair way of adjustment ; 
and therefore, in giving honor to whom honor is due, I give it 
to the Emperor of Brazil, upon the supposition that no untoward 
thing will occur to thwart the measure. 

But the commercial world has been sparing of its commenda- 
tions of Brazil for her seeming liberality with regard to the free 
navigation of the La Plata. They say — and have, alas ! but too 
much reason for saying — that there was no generosity, no liber- 
ity, no sign of any fairness whatever, in the course of Brazil with 
regard to the navigation of the La Plata. Bolivia, Paraguay, and 
Banda-Oriental, they say, had each as much right as Brazil to 
claim the free use of the La Plata for getting to sea with their 



52 

merchandise ; and if, upon the fall of Rosas, Brazil had then at- 
tempted to extort from Buenos Ayres any exclusive priviloge in 
the use of those waters, she knew that not only would these re- 
publics — her next door neighbors — all have turned against her, 
but that the three great commercial nations of the North would 
have stepped in to prevent any such exclusive and selfish appro- 
priation of Nature's highways. 

As a proof that Brazil was not actuated by any of those really 
enlarged and liberal views which it is the policy of commerce to 
carry out, I point to the Amazon. There Don Pedro is the 
Rosas. He holds the mouth of the Amazon — he shuts it up. 
Five sovereign and independent nations own its head-waters, and 
all of them have provinces and people upon the banks of its 
navigable tributaries ; but not one of them is allowed to follow 
the course of these navigable streams through Brazilian waters 
to the sea. 

Justice, the policy of commerce, the sentiment of the age, all 
the principles of national law, and the rights of people, are in 
favor of the free use of that river by those five Spanish- American 
republics ; and it cannot be said that Brazil acted from principle 
in the case of the La Plata until she makes, of her own accord, 
the navigation of the Amazon free. 

Formerly there was a Rosas who threatened to stand at the 
mouth of our Mississippi, and we, who then owned the head-waters 
only, claimed, and were ready to assert with the sword, our right 
to follow them, and to use them for commerce and navigation, 
until they mingled with and were lost in the sea. 

It has now not been quite four years ago since this subject of the 
free navigation of the La Plata and the Amazon was brought to 
the attention of this government. 

The proposition was, that we should offer to Brazil our friendly 
mediation with Rosas, and use our kind offices to induce him to 
make free the navigation of the La Plata, and so end the war. 

It was proposed, also, that in the mean time we should treat 
with Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, New Granada, and Venezuela for 
ports of entry to foreign vessels and commerce up their navigable 
tributaries of the Amazon, and thus turn upon Brazil with the same 
arguments for the free navigation of the Amazon that Brazil stood 
ready to urge in favor of her right to navigate the La Plata. 

Brazil got wind of this. She found out that such a thing as 
the free navigation of the Amazon began to form the subject of 
conversation in commercial and political circles here, and she im- 
mediately took the most active steps to render of no avail any 
attempt on our part having for its object the free navigation of 
the Amazon. 

She redoubled her energies in the war against Rosas, and she 



—_ 



53 

despatched in hot haste ministers extraordinary and plenipoten- 
tiary to Peru, to Bolivia, to Ecuador, and New Granada, and Ven- 
ezuela, to treat with each of those five Spanish- American repub- 
lics for the exclusive right to navigate their Amazonian tributaries. 

For the Portuguese, who had owned the Amazon for ages, who 
had not had the power to make an impression upon its forests, 
nor to launch a steamer upon its bosom, for such people to go and 
talk to the Bolivians and others about sending steamers away up 
the main trunk of the Amazon, to paddle up and down the repub- 
lican spring-branches of the Spanish- Americans, was truly a 
diplomatic phenomenon ! " You have an Athens — embellish 
that, tell your master" — should have been the reply of these 
proud republicans to the Imperial Ambassador. 

I quote from the Bio correspondent of the " Observator" — a 
Brazilian newspaper — of May last. This correspondent appears 
to be in the secrets of the government, and no doubt spoke the 
sentiments of that jealous cabinet: 

" The navigation of the Amazon goes on swimmingly ; the government of Peru, 
by the convention of the 23d of last October.made with our new minister, Duarte da 
Ponte Ribeiro, obliges itself to assist the first steam enterprise established upon 
the Amazon with a sum never less than $20,000. 

" The government has named in quality of resident minister, and for an extra- 
ordinary mission near the governments of the republics of Venezuela, Ecuador, 
and New Granada, our minister to Bolivia, Miguel Maria Lisboa. The object of 
this mission is a treaty with those republics for the navigation of the Amazon, because, 
as I think, it is feared that the United States will hasten to arrange one for the navi- 
gation of some of the tributaries of the Amazon, and thus judge themselves authorized 
to enter the Amazon from without, as the journals of New York and New Orleans 
already propose. We have been careless in this matter, and mustnoio hurry about it. 

" This nation of pirates, like those of their race, wish to displace all the people 
of America who are not Anglo Saxons." 

Thus the objects of Da Ponte's mission to Peru and Bolivia, 
and of Lisboa' s to Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador, are 
clearly set forth. 

They were to frustrate any attempts at treaty the commercial 
nations might be disposed to make with these republics touching 
river navigation, to hood-wink them, to retard their progress, to 
seal up tighter than ever their great arteries of commerce, and 
thus perpetuate the stagnation and death that have for 300 years 
reigned in the great Amazonian water-shed. 

Brazil seemed already to have forgotten that what was right 
on the south side of the Tropic of Capricorn must be right also 
under the Line ; for the same arguments that apply to the free 
navigation of the La Plata apply also to the free navigation of 
the Amazon. 

Peru fell into the trap, and made the required treaty ; but the 
more sagacious statesmen of Bolivia got wind of the design, and 
not only refused to treat with Brazil upon the subject, but the 



54 

enlightened President of that republic proposes to establish upon 
the Amazonian tributaries of Bolivia, free ports to all the world. 

" Como los Brazileros" says a gentleman of Bolivia, writing 
as to this pretension of Brazil to steamboat navigation upon the 
rivers of Bolivia, "pretenden el privilejio, y el Presidente Belzu, 
es bastante capas para conocer lo que le conviene a Bolivia, el se 
ha negado a dar dicha concesion, y espera que los Estados Unidos 
seran los primer as en deseubrier aquellas rejiones."* 

Moreover, as the good genius of Amazonia, and free nav- 
igation would have it, neither the Brazilian nor the Peruvian 
plenipotentiary appeared to have a sufficient knowledge of the 
subject of which the two were treating; they evidently knew 
very little of the navigability of those waters, the monopoly of 
which they aimed to secure. 

This treaty was secretly negotiated in Lima last October twelve 
months, and was ratified in Rio two or three months ago only. 
I have a manuscript copy of it before me now. Its title is, "A 
treaty of fluvial commerce and navigation and of boundary 
between the republic of Peru and the empire of Brazil." 

The question of boundary was settled in two words: Uti 



I quote with regard to the river steamboat navigation : 

"ARTICLE FIRST. 

" The republic of Peru and his Majesty the Emperor of Brazil, desiring to en- 
courage, respectively, the navigation of the river Amazon and its confluents by 
steamboat, 'which, by insuring the exportation of the immense products of those 
vast regions, may contribute to increase the number of the inhabitants and 
civilize the savage tribes, agree that the merchandise, produce, and craft passing 
from Peru to Brazil, or from Brazil to Peru, across the frontier of both States, 
shall be exempt from all duty imposts, or sale-duty (alcabala) whatsoever, to 
which the same products are not subject in the territory where produced ; to 
which they shall be wholly assimilated. 

" ARTICLE SECOND. 

"The high contracting parties, being aware of the great expense attending 
the establishment of steam navigation, and that it will not yield a profit during 
the first years to the shareholders of the company destined to navigate the Am- 
azon from its source to the banks (litoral) in Peru — which should belong exclu- 
sively to the respective States — agree to give to the first company which shall be 
formed a sum of money during five years in aid of its operations ; which sum 
shall not be less than twenty thousand dollars annually for each of the high con- 
tracting parties, either of whom may increase the said amount, if it suits its 
particular interests, without the other party being thereby obliged to contribute 
in the same ratio. 

"The conditions to which the shareholders are to be subject, in consideration 
of the advantages conceded to them, shall be declared in separate articles. 

"The other conterminous States which, adopting the same principles, may 



* "As the Brazilians claim the privilege, and as President Belzu understands 
the interests of Bolivia in the matter, he has refused to make any such conces- 
sion, and hopes the United States will be the first to explore those regions-" 



55 

desire to take part in the enterprise upon the same conditions, shall likewise 
contribute a certain pecuniary quota to it." 

"SEPARATE ARTICLES. 

"For the better understanding of Article 2 of the convention signed this day, 
the high contracting parties have further agreed to the following articles : 

"ARTICLE FIRST. 

" The shareholders of the steam navigation mentioned in the second article of 
the convention concluded on this date shall be bound to the following conditions : 

" 1st. The steamboats shall make three voyages the first year, four in the 
second, and at least six voyages in the third, fourth and fifth. 

"When, owing to circumstances arising from the great distance, obstruction 
of the river, making experiments connected with its navigation, want of com- 
bustibles, or other weighty reasons, it may be impossible to make that number 
of voyages, the shareholders shall receive only five thousand dollars for every 
voyage that the boats make during the two first years, and three thousand dollars 
for every one made during the third, fourth, and fifth. 

"2d. They shall convey free of charge the mail-bags of the government and 
of the post office, and deliver them at the places on the banks as they pass along, 
until the end of the voyage. 

" 3d. They shall also convey every voyage, passage free, four civil, military, or 
eclesiastical officers in the service of each government ; the luggage of these 
persons in quantity equal to that of other passengers, and the packages that 
each government may in particular wish to send, provided they do not exceed 
two tons. 

"4th. They shall be obliged to take on board or in tow the troops, ammuni- 
tion, and effects that the two governments may wish to send, receiving therefor 
an equitable remuneration — the amount of which shall be fixed as soon as it 
shall be ascertained what is the necessary cost of performing said service. 

"5th. The company shall arrange with both governments touching the respec- 
tive points on the river Amazon or Maranon to which the steamboats shall navi- 
gate, and cencerning the ports at which they are to touch, and it shall be aubject 
to the fiscal and police regulations, notwithstanding their being liberated from im- 
posts of every kind. 

"ARTICLE SECOND. 

"Each government shall grant to the company the propriety of one-fourth 
part of a league square, at the places in which it may be necessary to establish 
a depot for combustibles, at any point not belonging to private persons ; but the 
title to the same shall be forfeited, unless the conditions above mentioned be 
complied with during the five years. It shall be lawful to cut wood for fuel on 
unoccupied lands, and to open and work coal mines." 

Under this treaty, Brazil has entered into an agreement with 
Irineo Evangelista de Souza to introduce the river steamer upon 
the Amazon. 

This contract was entered into on the 30th day of August last, 
and is one of the most odious monopolies that ever were inflicted 
upon free trade, or that now retard the progress of any country. 
A stringent monopoly of steamboat trade and travel on the Ama- 
zon for thirty years ! The preamble to this contract states, that 
in order to enable this Souza to form a company for the estab- 
lishment of steam navigation upon the Amazon, the exclusive 
right for thirty years to the steamboat trade, travel, and naviga- 
tion up and down that river, has been granted to him upon certain 
conditions, the principal of which are these : 



56 

1st. The capital of the company shall never be less than 
$600,000, (1,200 : 000 $000.) 

2d. There shall be two lines — one from Para, at the mouth of 
the Amazon, touching at the intermediate places, to Barra, at 
the mouth of the Rio Negro ; the second, from Barra, touching 
as aforesaid, to Nauta, near the mouth of the Ucayali, in Peru. 

3d. To the first line an annual subsidy of $80,000 (160 : 000 
$000) is to be paid for the first fifteen years : and the second line is 
to be paid annually the $20,000, which, by the " treaty of fluvial 
navigation and commerce," of which I have already spoken, Peru 
obligated herself to pay. 

4th. At the commencement, the first line is to make one round 
trip a month ; the second, three a year. 

The company, on the other hand, obligates itself to do certain 
things, and among these is to establish on the Amazon and its 
tributaries sixty colonies, which shall consist of Indians or emi- 
grants from such nations as the Crown may designate. Brazil 
no doubt made this grant with the view of complicating the 
question of the free navigation of the Amazon, which I know the 
five Spanish- American Republics that own its head-waters are 
disposed to raise. 

The first thing in this treaty of "fluvial commerce and naviga- 
tion" between Peru and Brazil that strikes one is the want of 
sagacity on the part of its negotiators, and the marvelous degree 
of infatuation by which Peru fell into the flimsy net that was so 
unskillfully spread before her. 

When Peru was invited to treat upon this subject, and was 
told that Brazil wanted to introduce the river steamer upon Peru- 
vian waters, there was, right at the mouth of the Amazon, the 
Tocantins, a most magnificent stream ; it crosses more parallels 
of latitude than our Mississippi or Missouri ; it lies wholly within 
Brazilian territory ; the banks of its upper tributaries are enli- 
vened with towns and villages, and peopled with 125,000 subjects 
of Brazil ; it takes its rise in the very heart of the empire, and 
from the Emperor's palace, at Rio, to the head-waters of this 
noble river, the distance is not five hundred miles ; and yet, with 
all the enterprise of Brazil, she had not been able to put, or to 
muster energy enough to make the attempt to put, a single 
steamer upon this river. It was a little surprising then, that the 
suspicions of Peru were not excited ; for there was something 
strange to see this Brazilian envoy passing by the mouth of the 
noble Tocantins at home, which his own countrymen, with their 
dug-outs and rude crafts, can ascend only at the rate of seven 
miles a day. It was strange, I say, to see this envoy leaving the 
rivers in his own country in such a condition, and traveling 
thousands of miles up the Amazon to propose to Peru to send 



57 

Brazilian steamers to navigate among the Andes, her tributaries 
of the Amazon ! ! 

Besides this, there are the Chingu and the Tapajos, with a 
dozen other noble streams, lying wholly within Brazilian territory ; 
some of them come from " Mountains of Diamonds," and gold is 
in the beds of all of them. They are all strangers to the steam- 
boat. Their sources are so completely lost in unknown regions 
of the vast interior of Brazil, that astronomers are far better 
acquainted with the geography of the moon than statesmen or 
philosophers are with the country drained by these rivers ; and 
yet, seeing this, and how that government had neglected them 
all, Peru could still be induced to listen to its shallow propositions ! 

Nay, there is the beautiful river of San Erancisco, which emp- 
ties directly into the sea, and the head-waters of which are just 
behind the first range of hills in the rear of the capital of the 
empire. Without having had the energy to introduce the steam- 
boat even upon the waters of this river, the Chevalier Da Ponte 
is sent off upon this shallow mission about the head-waters of the 
Amazon, which by fatuity the diplomatists of Peru, it seems, 
could not fathom. I fear me there is something sinister here on 
the part of our neighbors. 

This attempt of Brazil to negotiate with those five Amazonian 
republics can be considered in no other light than an attempt to 
stop the progress of civilization ; for, to close the Amazon to 
commerce and the steamboat is to shut out from that benighted 
country which it drains the lights of civilization, the blessings of 
Christianity, and all the elements of human happiness ! 

But such a treaty ! The Brazilian minister, I am told, did not 
hesitate privately, when in Lima, to advance the sentiment, that it 
was not the policy of Brazil to treat with nations more powerful than 
herself; that in the interpretation of treaties the stronger power 
always enforced its own construction, and the weaker as invariably 
went to the wall. 

Whether he was instructed by his master, or not, to utter these sen- 
timents, I shall at any rate show how faithfully Brazil has acted 
up to this policy in the case of this treaty with Peru at least. 
By it each of the contracting parties pledged itself to give annu- 
ally a sum not less than $20,000 for the introduction of the steam- 
boat upon the waters of the Amazon ; and what has been the 
result ? Why, this : Brazil, as we have seen by the Souza con- 
tract, has taken this 20,000 of Peruvian money, and given it to 
one of her oivn subjects, to establish a line of steamers under her 
own flag, from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Nauta — that is, it 
is to run about 1,500 miles through Brazilian territory, and when 
it gets a few miles into Peru to stop short. But still Peru must 
pay the piper. When this line reaches the mouth of the Rio 



58 

Negro it is to feed there with its freights another line under the 
Brazilian flag to Para. 

Thus Peru, to get about 250 miles of her thousands of miles of 
navigable water-courses navigated by steam, is made to pay 
Brazilian bottoms and subjects for navigating 1,500 miles of 
Brazilian waters ! In other words, this steamer is to make three 
trips into Peru the first year, and in going there and back it is 
to sail 1,500 miles, all told, upon Peruvian waters for Brazilian 
account ; and for this Peru has pledged herself to pay at the rate 
of $17.00, or rather $16.66§ per mile. There is something 
wrong here. Peru has been betrayed. 

I have no pleasure in exposing this miserable trickery of the 
court of Brazil. But she has arrayed herself against the im- 
provement and the progress of the age, and she has attempted by 
intrigue so to shape the course of events that she might lock up and 
seal with the seal of ignorance and superstition and savage bar- 
barity the finest portions of the earth ; and, if freemen were to 
keep their silence, the very stones would cry out. 

Science, commerce, and the wants of mankind are beginning 
to call loudly for admittance into that country ; and up the Ama- 
zon they must and will go, for when they call, the world is right 
apt to heed. 

The object of Brazil in negotiating this treaty with Peru was, 
as we have seen by the Rio correspondent of the " Observator," 
already quoted, to exclude "this nation of pirates," as we are 
there styled, from these water-courses. 

But the "high contracting" parties, as it often happens to the 
wicked, fell themselves into the net which they had spread for 
other feet ; for they seem not to have recollected the provisions 
of a treaty which .Randolph Clay, our most skillful and accom- 
plished representative in Lima, had just negotiated with Peru. 

Only three months before the date of this " fluvial treaty," that 
excellent diplomatist had negotiated in Lima a "treaty of friend- 
ship, commerce, and navigation with Peru." 

By the 10th article of that treaty, it is set forth that : — 

"The republic of Peru, desiring to increase the intercourse along its coasts by 
means of steam navigation, hereby engages to accord to any citizen or citizens of 
the United States, who may establish a line of steam vessels to navigate regularly 
between the different ports of entry within the Peruvian territories, the same 
privileges of taking in and landing freight, entering the by-ports for the purpose 
of receiving and landing passengers and their baggage, specie, and bullion, car- 
rying the public mails, establishing depots for coal, erecting the necessary 
machine and work shops for repairing and refitting the steam vessels, and all 
other favors enjoyed by any other association or company whatsoever." 

" It is furthermore understood between the high contracting parties that the 
steamers of either shall not be subject in the ports of the other party to any 
duties of tonnage, harbor, or other similar duties whatsoever, than those that are 
or may be paid by any other association or company." 



m 

By the 3d article it is agreed that : — 

" The two high contracting parties hereby bind and engage themselves not to 
grant any favor, privilege, or immunity whatever, in matters of commerce and 
navigation to other nations, which shall not be also immediately extended to the 
citizens of the other contracting party, who shall enjoy the same gratuitous, or, 
on giving a compensation as nearly as possible of proportionate value and 
effect, to be adjusted by mutual agreement if the concession shall have been con- 
ditional." 

And finally, by the 2d article it is declared that :- — 

" The United States of America and the republic of Peru mutually agree that 
there shall be reciprocal liberty of commerce and navigation between their 
respective territories and citizens ; the citizens of either republic may frequent 
with their vessels all the coasts, ports, and places of the other wherever (enque) 
foreign commerce is permitted, and reside in all parts of the territory of either, 
and occupy dwellings and warehouses : and everything belonging thereto shall 
be respected, and shall not be subject to any arbitrary visit or search. 

"The said citizens shall have full liberty to trade in all parts of the territories 
of either, according to the rules established by the respective regulations of 
commerce, in all kinds of goods, merchandise, manufactures, and produce not 
prohibited to all, and to open retail stores and shops, under the same municipal 
and police regulations as native citizens." * * * * ■ * 

Thus Brazil, instead of treating us out of the Amazon, has 
treated us into it ; for, by solemn stipulations with Peru, Amer- 
ican citizens had already the right to frequent with their vessels 
all the coasts, ports, and places in Peru wherever foreign com- 
merce is or may be permitted. 

And, furthermore, in this treaty Peru binds and engages her- 
self not to grant any "favor, privilege, or immunity whatever, 
in matters of commerce and navigation to other nations, which 
shall not be also immediately extended to the citizens of the" 
United States. 

Thus, therefore, this treaty of " fluvial navigation and com- 
merce" between Peru and Brazil has let us into the Amazon, so 
far as Peru can let us in; for we have the same right to trade 
upon her Amazonian tributaries that Brazil has. 

Moreover, Lieut. Herndon informs me that the vessels of Brazil 
that go poling about the Amazon and its Spanish- American tri- 
butaries are in the habit of visiting all places and ports in these 
republics, without let or hinder ance. They gather the products 
of the forest, and the staples of the country ad libitum — in short, 
that the Brazilians enjoy there a perfect free trade, there not 
being a custom-house or an excise officer in the whole valley, or a 
single restraint upon perfect freedom of trade, until you get clown 
into Brazil. 

We have, therefore, in the Amazonian provinces and upon the 
Amazonian waters of Peru, all the rights and privileges that 
Brazil has, if we can get there. 

Not only so : Peru, in 1850, published a decree which made 



60 

her Amazonian provinces for a while the common property of the 
world. 

When that gold-exploring party, of which I have already men- 
tioned, returned with their 700 pounds' weight of gold, washed in 
gourds from the streams of this water-shed, the ministers of Peru 
wrote letters and had them published, inviting all the world, in 
consequence, as they said, of these discoveries of the ore and wash- 
ings of gold in her province of Carabaya, to come and take 
advantage of them, and make use of the natural productions of 
those regions ; and the world was assured that the emigrants of 
all nations going there should have all civil and religious liberty. 

But this invitation fell still-born, because the Andes, with their 
snow-capped summits, and the long, boisterous, and dangerous pas- 
sage of Cape Horn, stood up on one hand as a barrier to keep 
out the immigrant by way of the shores of the Pacific, and on 
the other hand Brazil closed up the Amazon against his passage 
up from the Atlantic ocean. 

Hence arises the question of the day — that of the free naviga- 
tion of the Amazon. 

The question as to the free use for navigation of a river which 
runs through the dominions of more than one power is a familiar 
one to statesmen. It has been settled upon the everlasting prin- 
ciples of right long ago, and cannot now admit of dispute. 

In Europe the navigation of the Rhine is conceded as a right in 
common to those to whom its waters belong. In North America 
it is a right — this free use of waters that are common property — 
which involves principles very dear to our people. The Missis- 
sippi is an illustration of this fact ; for the people do not forget 
that the mouth of that river was once in foreign hands that 
threatened to shut it up to us of the great West when we were 
owners of its head navigable waters only, and not of its mouth. 

It is a right which, in the case of Texas, we practically con- 
ceded to her citizens with regard to tne Bed river without the 
asking, when she was an independent republic. 

It is a right which the United States have always claimed with 
regard to the St. Lawrence, but which we have never thought 
worth a contention, because for all, or rather for a very great 
many, of the practical purposes of life, our people have brought 
the commercial mouth of the St. Lawrence down by railroad and 
canal from the straits of Belle Isle, and placed it at Sandy Hook. 

Canadian merchants and English subjects pay tolls to our rail- 
roads and canals for taking their produce to New York and a 
market. We therefore do not greatly care to see the St. Law- 
rence opened. 

In South America it is a right which Brazil has asserted on 
the La Plata, even to the " ultima ratio^ when she was one of 
the upper countries. 



61 

The United States, therefore, are committed to this principle ; 
and Brazil is committed to it. 

We have contended for it here on the north side of the Tropic 
of Cancer ; Brazil has fought for it under Capricorn ; and we 
must both stand up for it together under the Equator. 

But in the case with us on this side of the line, there were 
never more than two nations concerned in the navigation of a 
single water-course. Here in South America there are a dozen ; 
and this makes the case so much the stronger in favor of a liberal 
policy on all sides with regard to this question. 

In case of the Rio de la Plata, the up-countries which Rosas 
cut off from the sea were, the Banda-Oriental, Brazil, Paraguay, 
and Bolivia, not to mention Uruguay, Corrientes, Entre-Rios, 
Santa F^, and some half a dozen other States, which were in 
such an anomalous condition that one knows not whether to class 
them as nations or anarchies. 

In the case of the Amazon, there are five different republics 
in the up country, with Brazil at the mouth of the river ; not one 
of these five has the means or the power to force her way down, 
and Brazil will not let them come down peaceably. The Ama- 
zon, therefore, presents a question for which, as there is no river- 
basin equal to it, there is no precedent. 

We have the right from Peru to navigate her tributaries, if we 
can get to them. Bolivia is talking of making hers as free to all 
as is the sea. Ecuador is inclined to do the same ; and both New 
Granada and Venezuela will no doubt follow suit the moment 
they are invited so to do. 

We have heard of the question before as to " free goods and 
free bottoms." But here the question is, whether "free ports 
make free rivers." 

Suppose the five Spanish-American republics should all pro- 
claim one or more of their river towns upon the Amazon free 
ports to the commerce of the world ; and suppose that Brazil, in- 
stead of owing two thousand miles or more of this river after it 
passes the borders of these republics, owned only two miles from 
the sea up : would any one pretend that Brazil in such a case 
would have the right to control the navigation of the whole river 
and its valley, because its mouth happened to pass through two 
miles of her territory just before entering the sea ? 

The doctrine that concedes to any one nation the arbitrary right 
to shut out other nations from the common highways of the world 
is monstrous. 

The arbitary right even to shut one of the citizens of this 
nation from the public highways is not possessed by any of our 
govenors. And if his neighbors must allow him free passage 
through their own lands to the common market-way, with how 



62 

much more force does this humane principle of right apply to 
nations and their right to follow, through neighboring territory, 
the great thoroughfares which Nature has constructed to lead 
from the interior of the land out upon the broad ocean, the 
great highway of the world ? 

Brazil has no more right, in consequence of her two thousand 
miles of Amazon between these people and the sea, to shut them 
up and out from the highways of commerce, than she would in the 
supposed case of two miles. 

The policy of the United States is the "policy of commerce," 
and we do not wish to be on any terms with Brazil but those of 
peace and good-will. We buy now half of all her coffee, and 
coffee is her great staple. She is a good customer of ours too, 
and we value highly our present friendly relations with her ; but 
as highly as we value them, we value still more the everlasting 
principles of right. 

We want nothing exclusive up the Amazon ; but we are nearer 
to the Amazon, or rather to the mouth of it, than any other 
nation, not even excepting Brazil herself, if we count the distance 
in time, and measure from Rio de Janeiro, and from New York 
or New Orleans as the centres of the two countries. And, there- 
fore, it may well be imagined that this miserable policy by which 
Brazil has kept shut up, and is continuing to keep shut up, from 
man's — from Christian, civilized, enlightened man's — use the 
fairest portion of God's earth, will be considered by the Ameri- 
can people as a nuisance, not to say an outrage. 

China wants to trade with us, but Japan stands by the way- 
side, and shuts herself up and out of the world. She is not in 
the fellowship of nations, and we send a fleet there to remind her 
that she cannot be in the world and live out of it at one and 
the same time. God has put the land she occupies on this earth, 
and she cannot take it away by her policy. 

The five Spanish-American republics want to trade up and 
down the Amazon ; but Brazil, worse than Japan on the wayside, 
stands right in the doorway, and says, "Nay, I will neither use 
the Amazon myself, nor permit others to use it. That great up- 
country shall remain a social and a commercial blank to blot the 
face of the earth.." 

Is it the policy of the great commercial nations to permit that ? 
No, it is no more their policy than a state of war, and not of 
peace, is their policy. 

In fine, the people of this country cannot look with indiffer- 
ence at the policy Brazil has pursued, and seems disposed to con- 
tinue to pursue, with regard to the Amazon. 

She and her rulers have had it for 300 years, and the first 
practical step towards subduing it and developing its resources 
has yet to be taken. 



63 

Under these circumstances, it appears to me that Brazil, if she 
persist in her dog-in-the-manger policy with regard to the Ama- 
zon and the countries drained by it, runs some risk of getting up 
a discussion among the enlightened and commercial nations as to 
what her rights to the Amazon are, and whether they are not in 
danger of being forfeited by non-usage. 

This certainly is the question of the day. The problem of the 
age is that of the free navigation of the Amazon and the settle- 
ment of the Atlantic slopes of South America. It is to draw 
after it consequences of the greatest importance, results of the 
greatest magnitude. 

It is to stand out in after times, and among all the great things 
which this generation has already accomplished as the achieve- 
ment, in its way, of the nineteenth century. The time will come 
when the free navigation of the Amazon will be considered by the 
people of this country as second in importance, by reason of its 
conservative effects, to the acquisition of Louisiana, if it be 
second at all ; for I believe it is to prove the safety-valve of this 
Union. I will not press this view, or its bearings any further at 
this time ; though I think statesmen will agree with me that this 
Amazonian question presents a bright streak to the far-seeing eye 
of the patriot. But while the free navigation, the settlement, 
and the cultivation, and the civilization of the Amazon is preg- 
nant with such great things, it is an achievement which is not to 
be worked out by the hand of violence, nor is it to be accomplished 
by the strong arm of power. It is for science, with its lights ; 
for diplomacy, with its skill ; for commerce, with its influences ; 
and peace, with its blessings, to bring about such a great result as 
would be the free navigation of the Amazon — the settlement and 
cultivation of the great Atlantic slopes of South America. 

INCA. 



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